


So Carefully Taught

by defiant_gravy (Viola25)



Category: Criminal Minds, Glee
Genre: (for Criminal Minds), Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viola25/pseuds/defiant_gravy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Case fic: the BAU is sent to southern Ohio to investigate a series of gruesome murders. But there are contradictory elements to the case, and the body count is rising. Crossover with Glee; warnings inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The New Case

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: I guess the current season (7) of Criminal Minds. Morgan ended up being a bit more of a focal character than others, but it's definitely a team case fic, not a character study. For Glee, it takes place in an AU season 2.
> 
> Again, this is AU for Glee. I am changing canon in a very significant way that will make at least one character very OOC. FYI, it will be a while before any characters from Glee show up. (Or will it?)
> 
> ***IMPORTANT WARNINGS: graphic depiction of rapes and murders—including of teen character(s). The age of consent in Ohio is 16, so I don't think we're talking officially underage, but pretty close to it. Also: bad words, misogynistic and homophobic attitudes, etc.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't work in law enforcement. And the pacing is pretty slow in these first few chapters, but it does pick up.

* * *

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." –André Malraux

* * *

March was drawing to a close with a sigh, and the view outside JJ's window was still tinged pink by the sunrise. She sighed, cuddling a still-sleepy Henry to her chest and mentally running through the day. She hadn't quite decided whether the team would be travelling to Tennessee or Ohio. Tennessee seemed potentially more urgent, but yesterday afternoon her contact in Ohio had informed her of a missing girl. It didn't seem to be any obvious connection to the case she was considering, but JJ had a gut feeling about it.

She shook herself and dropped a kiss on Henry's forehead, murmuring "Back to bed, sweetie." She'd head in early and look at the files again, perhaps call for an update from Ohio. They'd head out soon enough. For now, her colleagues could sleep.

She might not have bothered had she known that only Rossi and Hotch were actually sleeping. Garcia was sitting at her computer and waiting for another message; she'd been IMing for the last four hours with the daughter of a murdered doctor. Prentiss ran on a treadmill and skimmed the latest international news.

Spencer Reid sipped coffee and started the final chapter of a book arguing that violence was in decline. He thought the author, a cognitive psychologist, made some compelling points statistically, but it was still hard for Reid to believe. Of course, Reid knew his sense of the prevalence of violent crime was distorted by his work with the BAU. And fewer homicides in the country meant relatively little to individual victims.

Morgan ran across a field behind the animal shelter, a burly pit bull bounding at his side. He'd volunteered at a women's shelter for a time. But after a while he'd had to stop. He didn't blame the women for the fear in their eyes when they looked at him. He knew what he looked like to them, and eventually looked for another outlet for his sporadic volunteering.

He didn't get out to the shelter on any particular schedule, because of work and because he ran with his own dog a lot, too. But his dog Clooney was a lazy bum, and on restless mornings it picked him up to see a big, muscled dog get a chance to really move. His usual pleasure was tempered this morning by the absence of a bull mastiff, Jester. Not all dogs found homes, and after Jester snarled at shelter visitors, sometime between Morgan's last visit and today, he'd been euthanized. Morgan pulled at the pit's stubby ears and led it back into the shelter with regret. He had a bad feeling about the day already.

It had been a full five weeks since the team's last trip out of state, three weeks of consulting with local departments by phone, scheduling prison interviews and catching up on paperwork. It didn't surprise them to be summoned to a 9am meeting in the conference room.

JJ handed them out files for them to peruse as she explained, "Over the last three weeks, four women have been murdered in southern Ohio. The first is Angela Meeks, found March 4." A photo flashed onto the screen of Meeks as she was in life; a pale woman with greasy light brown hair and heavy makeup. JJ knew the team was reading details in their files; that Meeks was a 36-year-old prostitute from downtown Columbus, her body found in the hotel where she often took johns. After a pause for them to read, JJ projected a photo of the body and explained, "Her hair was cut off with dull scissors, possibly nail scissors; none were found at the scene, but she was known to carry them. She died of asphyxiation and was anally raped post-mortem."

She clicked to a picture of the next victim. "Next was Ashley Beck, found March 6."

"She's quite a bit younger," mused Rossi, noting her age of 23.

"She's the same physical type though," Prentiss said, "and also a prostitute from Columbus."

"But dumped in a park in Grove City. That suburb is a solid 20 minute drive south of Columbus's city center," JJ told them. "This time the unsub came prepared to cut off her hair, with what forensics think was an ordinary kitchen knife. But he also used it to cut off her breasts. There's evidence of both vaginal and anal penetration, with the latter more severe, and both occurred before her asphyxiation."

"The first murder was a crime of opportunity," Hotch surmised. "Whatever fantasy the unsub had, Meeks wasn't a perfect match. Something changed with that murder and made him decided to carry out his fantasy more precisely."

"That's what the police suspect," JJ agreed, briefly displaying the gruesome photo of Beck's body. The crude haircut looked grotesque, the few remaining longer strands soaked with blood, and the amputated breasts nearby.

"He didn't take the breasts as a trophy, then," Morgan said to no one in particular.

Knowing most of the team liked to work through their initial reactions aloud, and that that Reid would likely join in once he finished reading the complete file, JJ moved on. "Both Meeks and Beck usually worked on Sullivant Avenue, but the third victim worked West Broad Street. Both are common locations for prostitution in Columbus. Shawna McKenzie, age 20." The photo of McKenzie in life was probably her senior picture; it looked professionally done, her brown hair cut to flatter her pale skin and high cheekbones.

"She was found two weeks later, on March 21, in a dumpster in the west Columbus suburb of Hilliard. Her injuries resemble Beck's. The latest victim was found this morning in a highway rest area between Columbus and an eastern suburb, Gahanna. Caitlin Cornelius, 19 years old, of Marysville, Ohio."

"Where is that? Is it near Columbus?" Prentiss asked.

JJ clicked to a map showing the Columbus area, but Reid was already answering, "It's 35 miles northwest of Columbus."

No one even commented on how Reid could possibly know that information. They knew he picked up road atlases wherever the team found themselves.

"Besides the location, there's another striking change about Cornelius," JJ told them. "She's not a prostitute." A click, and the team gazed at her photo as if she could tell them what had happened to her. "She was living with an infirm aunt and attending college online. She went for a run every morning around 9; yesterday she never returned. The coroner on the scene estimated her time of death at around noon yesterday."

"The unsub went seeking prostitutes in Columbus because they're easy prey," Rossi theorized. "He may or may not live there. But look at her; she's exactly his type, he saw her, and he took her."

"Are we completely sure it's the same unsub?" Morgan asked. "If information about the earlier murders has been released to the press, we could be looking at a copycat."

JJ shook her head. "The police were examining the connection by the second murder, and were aware of it by the third—I've been in contact with them about a possible consult for the last few days—but none of the details had been made public. In fact, due to the differing locations of the bodies, the media hadn't picked up on the serial nature of the case."

"I'm guessing they have now," Rossi drawled.

"Before this, the last murder in Marysville was in 2004, an open and shut domestic case. What do you think? I got a call from the police this morning about Cornelius's body. Local reporters have probably already made the connection. Anyway, fingerprints have been recovered from all the other crime scenes; they probably will from this one too. Unfortunately, they haven't matched any existing in the system. They're going to do an autopsy right away and hopefully have preliminary results in by the time we get there."

Hotch glanced at his watch. "The unsub seems to be following a timed pattern, but if he's not limited his search for victims to Columbus, we don't have a lot to go on. Wheels up in an hour."

* * *

On the plane, they floated ideas. The first victim, Meeks, was probably the unsub's first kill. As Hotch had noted, the murder seemed to be unplanned. The victimology was different enough to be significant from the later murders:

-over a decade older than the other victims

-the body left where she was found/killed

-no mutilation

-no vaginal penetration

-hair cut with a tool not like the other crime scenes

However, fingerprints found at the scene matched those found at the Beck and McKenzie crime scenes, and the hair was cut. It would be important to examine her death because something about her had led the unsub to progress from whatever he had been doing to murder. "Serial killers usually start with smaller crimes and work their way up to murder," Reid mused, and the others nodded at the obvious statement. "The mutilation suggests that we're dealing with a sadist, and you'd expect him to start with rapes without killing the victim before he ever kills."

Prentiss argued, "But while he's smart enough to use a condom, he's not smart enough to wear gloves or otherwise hide his fingerprints. It's unlikely he'd get that careless when murdering if he knew to hide his fingerprints when raping, and they haven't matched his prints to anything in IAFIS."

"His impulse has been growing in his mind for a long time," Morgan speculated. "He chose to blow off steam by going to Meeks as a customer; he didn't plan to kill her. If he did, he would have been prepared. He would have brought the knife with him, and he would have had a place to take her, instead of leaving her in her own hotel room."

Prentiss picked up the thread again. "That's why the first kill was sloppy. We definitely need to find out as much as we can about it."

Hotch nodded. "We'll see what the situation is when we get there, but I want you and Rossi concentrating on the Meeks case. However, the unsub's victimology seems to be more established now, and as we know, serial rapists hardly ever change victimology once it's been established. Yet, it seems that with this fourth victim, the profile is evolving. Let's confirm that it really is the same unsub and start putting a profile together. Since several police departments likely have jurisdiction over the different locations of the bodies, I want us to also help coordinate between them. JJ, you and I will take the lead on that. Morgan, Reid, I want you both focused on victimology and mapping, but we'll see what the situation is on the ground when we get there.


	2. The Initial Profile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suddenly have so much more respect for how the writers of CM manage so many characters and so much exposition dumping every week! 
> 
> And I really don't want to trigger anyone, so I want to repeat the warnings from the last chapter: rape, murder, bad words, hateful attitudes towards various groups. It's been pretty clinical so far, but it's not going to stay that way.

* * *

The scene at the Columbus police department was one of chaos. Officers from Grove City, Hillard, Gahanna and Marysville crowded into temporary offices, and reporters milled around outside. When they saw the black Suburbans the BAU usually rented, an excited buzz went up, and a few reporters either were enterprising enough to know the team, or their coming had been leaked by someone on the case.

The detective who met them, an attractive square-jawed woman, said, "Agent Hotchner, I don't know if you remember me. Maggie Callahan. I worked with your team five years ago on another serial rapist case."

Hotch's brow only briefly furrowed. "Dayton, correct?"

"Yes. I've since transferred to the Special Victims Bureau here in Columbus. I also recommended alerting your team when the first mutilation was discovered. To be honest, I had hoped you wouldn't need to come here in person."

Hotch nodded, sympathetic but still terse. "You've already met some of the team then; SSAs Morgan, Jareau, and Dr. Reid. And I don't believe you've met Agents Prentiss or Rossi."

Each team member shook hands with Callahan, and she looked slightly sheepish as she told Rossi she'd met him once before at a book signing. Those who had met her before remembered the case as the one in which they'd lost their colleague Elle Greenaway to her personal demons. She'd been denying the emotional ramifications of being shot, and her bottled up feelings had not only led to venting frustration onto Callahan, but also to ultimately shooting the suspect in the case.

Callahan didn't appear to bear them any ill-will; she praised their insights as she introduced the team to the detectives and uniform cops in the room. As planned, Hotch sent Prentiss and Rossi to concentrate on Meeks. A uniform cop went to assist them in visiting where she worked on Sullivant Ave, the hotel where she died, and the family she left behind.

The rest of the team waited to hear the preliminary results of the autopsy. The county's medical examiner, Dr. Kopeland, arrived shortly after the BAU. He explained, "As the coroner estimated at the scene, Ms. Cornelius died at noon yesterday. She did not die at the rest area where she was found."

That wasn't very helpful in narrowing down the unsub's movements. Marysville and Gahanna were about 45 minutes away from each other, but Cornelius was missing for nearly 24 hours before her body was discovered, and three hours between her disappearance and her death. Reid was already drawing a radius on a map to track the area where the kill site could conceivably be, but it was far too large to search systematically.

Medical Examiner Kopeland continued, "Her left cheekbone was broken by a blow to the head, and there are defensive wounds on her hands and lower arms. Her wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape. There was also duct tape residue on her lips, indicating it had been used to gag her."

Morgan whispered to Reid, "Remind me; did any of the other victims have defensive wounds?"

"No," Reid whispered back. "They weren't restrained either, but the second and third were gagged with duct tape."

"Her hair was cropped short with something like a carving knife; one kept very sharp. Large chunks of hair were cut at a time; that's what causes the ragged appearance. Then her breasts were cut off. The slices and bits of hair sticking to the wounds suggest that it was the same knife used to cut her hair. The slices are made with confidence, but not with particular skill. They're rough and jagged; you can see that the killer relied more on brute strength than on any knowledge of anatomy."

Many of the people in the room looked queasy just thinking about it.

"It does not appear that the killer attempted to cauterize the wounds or apply pressure to stop the bleeding, but as breasts do not contain any major veins and are in fact mostly fatty tissue, it was likely not a life-threatening injury."

"Just an incredibly painful one," muttered an officer near Morgan.

"There are indications of both vaginal and anal penetration, both occurring while the victim was still alive. I think there is a possibility the vaginal penetration was done using an object rather than the killer's penis. There's a set of scratches on the vaginal wall that could be made by a foreign material like rubber or silicone. In addition, the object appears to have been inserted once quite forcefully, and then fully removed; there's no indication of repeated thrusts."

Around the room, cops wrote notes to themselves to find out whether this was also true of the other victims, and the BAU members did the same.

"The victim was anally raped very violently," Kopeland told them. "However, I did find traces of a lubricant. No semen was found. The victim was asphyxiated with her own shirt, and redressed in her own clothes once she was dead."

As the doctor answered questions, Callahan and the BAU team stared at their notes. The three victims who were moved after being killed all had their amputated breats left with their bodies, but not their hair. Was it because their hair was the unsub's trophy, despite not taking it from his first victim? Or was it simply easier for him to dispose of?

"This doesn't make any sense," Reid said. "An anger-excitation rapist gets sexual pleasure from the suffering of his victims; he doesn't use lube. That's the methodology of a power-reassurance rapist who's deluding himself into thinking the victim enjoys what he's doing."

"It's also unlike any of the other rapes so far," Callahan told them. "I don't think anyone had considered a dildo or other object in the other cases, so we need to revisit those reports. But we definitely would have known if the unsub used lube."

"This is unlike a traditional sadist in another way," Hotch commented. "A sadist is methodical; he plans every detail. The power-reassurance rapist, though, is much more likely to use a blitz attack and be an opportunity rapist. A sadist is typically much more organized and careful than this."

Morgan sighed. "But sadists are by far more lethal and likely to mutilate a part of the body. In those ways this unsub is a classic sadist."

Callahan asked them, "What's the significance of the cut hair and breasts? Have you seen anything like this before?"

"It's not very common, but it's not unheard of, either," Morgan told her.

Reid chimed in, "Sadists often fetishize a part of the body and keep it as a trophy. This unsub's indifference to keeping the hair or breasts could indicate that this is instead a symbolic attack on the femininity of his victims. He hates women and is threatened by them; in this way he's trying to rob them of their power over him. Also, all of these women have a physical resemblance. Consciously or unconsciously, the unsub is probably killing a specific woman in his life again and again."

A uniform officer nearby had been listening intently to their conversation. "Could the person from his actual life have been someone he's actually killed so far? Like, maybe he knew the first victim and when he killed her he got a taste for it? Or the prostitutes were practice runs for Cornelius who he really wanted to kill?"

"Both are unlikely, but possible," Hotch told him.

Reid elaborated, "The first is unlikely because usually confronting the actual person at the root of the issue in some way resolves it. Unless the unsub has a delusional disorder, it generally doesn't spur more killing, and when it does it's usually more of a spree. The second is possible, because if the unsub wanted to rehearse his ritual sex workers are one of the lowest-risk groups to attack. But the attack on Cornelius, like the one on Meeks, has more characteristics of a random attack of opportunity."

"Meaning?" asked the detective.

"Meaning, our unsub wasn't actually out looking for a victim when he saw Caitlin Cornelius, but she was exactly the type he favored and he had access to her as she was jogging alone down a quiet road with few houses. At least, that's our guess. In any case, the root of our unsub's anger issues, if she's confronted, will be faced only after a lot of planning, no matter how unorganized the unsub is."

"There's really only one way to know for sure, though," Hotch said, and the cop turned to look at him, inquiring. He couldn't have been a cop for long, Hotch thought. His eyes weren't nearly old enough. "If Cornelius was the target all along, the killings will stop."

JJ went to manage the press, and moving to a conference room the BAU had been given, the three remaining agents attempted to narrow down the starting point of the unsub, running ideas past Callahan as they did so. The first victim, Meeks, told them little, because she was found in the place she was killed.

The other three though, had all been presumably abducted from different places, taken to the same place to be raped, tortured and subsequently killed, and then taken to different locations to be disposed of. They made a chart listing the distance between the last places the victims were seen and the places their bodies were found. To this required travel time they added the 40 minutes the medical examiner estimated as the minimum time required for the unsub to complete his ritual. Finally and most importantly, they listed how long the victims were missing.

In the case of Ashley Beck, the unsub could have gotten from the location where he found her to the park in Grove City in a minimum of 15 minutes if he sped. That plus the 40 minutes for his ritual added up to just under an hour. If she was missing for, say, three hours, that put an upper limit on how far away the kill site could be.

Unfortunately, the team kept running into the same problem; for the prostitutes, no one was sure exactly how long they were missing. Other women on the street, if they spoke to police at all, remembered seeing Beck on the day she vanished, or the night before, but not when. Why would they record or remember when they last saw her? Her landlord reported seeing her leave the morning of her death at around 8:30, and her body wasn't found until that evening. The others were no more precise, and the time periods too large to be helpful in tracking the unsub.

"I think the unsub may have a connection to a suburb north of Columbus," Reid offered. "He's left bodies in the city itself and to the east, south, and west. He may be avoiding the north side because it's closer to where he actually lives or works."

"Maybe," Hotch allowed. "But it's a long shot, Reid, and that wouldn't narrow it down much anyway."

No one said what they all were thinking; the only way to see if the unsub was avoiding an area with a connection to him would be to get more bodies.

* * *

_Lauri screamed when the man ripped off the duct tape gag, a scream of pain for her bleeding chest, a scream for help, begging for it from anyone who might hear. Most of all, she screamed with humiliation and revulsion and fear. The flesh-colored dildo trembled between her thighs._

_The man backhanded her across the face. "I told you not to do that. You said you'd be good."_

_Lauri gasped, "Yes, I'll be good, I'll be good, please don't kill me please."_

_He hit her again. "Stop talking. You said you like it up the ass, right?"_

_She hesitated, unsure whether or not this was permission to speak, but when he raised a hand again she babbled, "Yes I love it, I love it, give it to me-"_

_Something softened in his expression, and when he spoken he suddenly seemed much younger to her. "Teach me how to make it good. I know I need this"- he showed her a tube of Astroglide- "but the last time I tried it still looked like it really hurt."_

_Lauri silently wondered why he couldn't just ask the last person he'd tried anal with, but managed to not say that out loud. "Did you stretch her first? With your fingers?" At his blank look, she said, "Oh, that's really important, baby, but don't worry, I can talk you through it. I'll help you make me feel real good, baby, and I'll make you feel real good, and—and everything will be OK."_

" _Don't lie," he warned her, and she didn't, but he killed her anyway._


	3. A Twist

Morgan swallowed a mouthful of cold coffee and sighed. They'd been in Columbus for less than a day, so it was unsurprising that they hadn't yet solved the case. But the pieces didn't make much sense. He crumpled his Styrofoam cup, threw it into the trash can in the corner, and tuned back in to the team's conversation to hear Prentiss say, "It just doesn't make sense!" with considerable frustration.

"We've progressed," JJ said, her tone reassuring but her eyes concerned. "Before you'd profiled him as a sadist, and you've changed that to an anger-retaliatory rapist."

Callahan was in on the meeting, and she nodded. "You've convinced me, Agent Rossi. The mutilation seems to be more about anger than about sexual release, and anger-retaliation rapists aren't as methodical as anger-excitation rapists. I'm comfortable telling the precincts that we're looking for a 20-25 year old white male who is very athletic, openly misogynistic, and likely has a history of abuse."

Reid had been drumming his fingers on the table. He stopped and said only, "I'm not comfortable with that profile."

Callahan seemed to wait a beat for someone on the team to disagree with him. After a moment, Rossi turned away from the window he'd been staring at and sighed. "I'm not either. An anger-retaliation unsub would be less likely to have a place to take his victims. He certainly wouldn't use lube. And he wouldn't attack this often."

"Neither would a sadist," Morgan couldn't help but point out, and shrugged at Rossi's brief look of annoyance.

"I just wish we'd gotten more from Meeks's friend," Prentiss said. They were pretty sure the friend had seen the unsub or at least his car, but she'd been high on LSD the last time she'd seen Meeks, and again when she spoke to Prentiss and Rossi. She'd described the man Meeks went off with as "like grape soda" and had been so highly suggestible that they hesitated to ask her anything for fear of leading her mind down the path they unconsciously expected. Once she'd come down a little, she'd guessed that the man was "big" and "young" and thought that maybe his car was white; Reid had informed them all that white was the most common car color in America.

Callahan stood and said, "Well, at least this is a starting point. You can keep refining the profile of course." She left the room.

Hotch told Reid, "You know that profiling is ultimately more about following statistical patterns and probabilities than any kind of gut instinct. I'm surprised to hear this kind of talk from you."

In all honesty, Morgan was a little surprised by that too; Reid prized his statistics so.

Reid shrugged. "I still know that when we unravel a profile, it usually feels right, and this doesn't. I think we're missing something big." Silently, they all agreed.

Hotch had them going in pairs to lunch with LEOs from the different cities; there were so many already with all the different dump sites. Morgan checked in with Garcia, who was looking through old records of abuse cases to see if any young men the right age had a mother or aunt with pale skin and light brown hair. It wasn't much to go on though. Then he waited for JJ to finish a call home to check on Henry. So they headed out for lunch late.

The cops from Marysville were good guys, if a little rough around the edges. A region-wide hotline had been set up for tips (with JJ's help) and the boys from Marysville told the agents about some of the stranger calls they'd gotten. The sullen waitress at the restaurant had scarcely finished bringing out there food when all the cell phones and pagers in the group went off. He pulled out his phone and saw the message: "There's been another one." It was 1:38pm.

* * *

Two days in a row—two days in a row. True, there had only been two days between the first and second murders, but the first case was an anomaly in many respects. After that he'd waited two weeks, then another week before killing again. Usually with an explosion of media coverage, an unsub would panic and lay low for a while, not pick up pace.

"He's so angry," Rossi murmured.

"At us?" JJ asked. She looked around the room, at Hotch, his dark head bent as he studied his notes again, at Morgan talking rapidly on the phone, probably with Penelope, at Reid—she put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. What are you thinking?"

He shook his head. "I'm wondering what will be different about this one, besides the obvious."

JJ looked again at the pictures of the Jane Doe; her fingerprints were already being sent through IAFIS. Besides the obvious, indeed. The victim already had short hair, and the unsub hadn't bothered to cut her hair any closer. "Maybe he  _is_  killing the same person again and again," she thought. "Maybe a woman with short hair."

IAFIS returned with a match, and the first surprise of the afternoon: their Jane Doe was Lauri Webber, age 18, and she'd been arrested for prostitution just three months earlier… in Toledo. A sister was en route to identify the body, but not only did Webber still live in Toledo, but the sister had spoken to her at 9:45 that morning.

According to a transcript of the initial interview, they'd been chatting about the whether it was really spring or a snowstorm could be expected that weekend when Lauri broke off the conversation, saying, "Hey, I think I've got someone interested." She'd called out to the person she saw, then told her sister, "I'll text you after about lunch, bye," and hung up.

Sometime between 9:45 and 1:35, Lauri Webber was mutilated, murdered, and dumped in the cold spring slush near a Civil War memorial in township of New California. In a little under four hours, the unsub had killed her (40 minutes) and driven at least two hours, quite likely more.

There was new energy in Penelope's voice when Morgan put her on speakerphone. "As I just told my chocolate honey, our creeper has to be based somewhere along the line between Columbus and Toledo. Furthest east he could be is…" they could hear the rapid movement of computer keys "…Mansfield. The furthest west is Lima." It was still a huge area, but it gave them something to work with at least.

"So he's mad the media knows about him," Prentiss said.

Rossi grunted in agreement, adding, "But nervous enough about it that he went somewhere else to look for victims."

"He brought the body back to the Columbus area though," Hotch mused, almost to himself. "He knows Columbus. He's comfortable with Columbus."

"I'll say," Morgan said as he finished his call. "Thanks, Baby Doll. If you don't get the report on Webber you let me know." To the rest of them he explained, "New California? It's a gas station, a church and that memorial. He knows the area damn well; all the little suburbs."

Hotch picked up where he'd left off. "But he's not so set on Columbus that he needs to stay here. Morgan, Rossi, once you hear what Medical Examiner Kopeland has to say, I want you to head up to Toledo. See if you can't figure anything out from that end."

In his report, Dr. Kopeland concluded that when the vacationing family had stopped at the memorial for a quick photo and found a body instead, Lauri Webber had been dead for about an hour. As Reid had pessimistically predicted, there was indeed a new development in the story her body told. Two developments, in fact.

First, although there was tape residue on Webber's lips, there wasn't any on her wrists or ankles. Kopeland told them, "There is some faint bruising, nearly indiscernible to the naked eye, but I was looking for it. It's only a guess, but the assailant may have invested in padded restraints."

He flipped a page. "Once again, there were traces of a lubricant associated with the anal penetration. However, there was a distinct lack of bruising or tearing to the genital area. Absent the victim's other injuries, a medical examination would likely find that she had engaged in consensual sex."

On one hand, the unsub was killing faster. Was he devolving? Would they find him soon because of a rapid spiral towards a killing frenzy? On the other hand, how could a rapist motivated by hatred towards women actually be getting physically "gentler" in his rapes? How could he simultaneously brutalize them with a knife while lessening the other pain he inflicted?

* * *

_He'd lost track of how much money he'd spent on gas in the last two months. He'd been saving up for season passes for the Buckeyes, the Bengals and the Columbus Blue Jackets. He'd talked about fixing up his car and doing a road trip that summer with his buddies. Now his money was almost gone and he hadn't talked to his friends in weeks, and when the ATM at the gas pump asked if he wanted a receipt he pressed "no."_

_He felt itchy, like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. He could go back to Toledo but he saw on the cops in Toledo doing a press conference. It was on the 11:00 news. He thought about going to Dayton or Cincinnati or Fort Wayne but he'd looked online last night, after he saw the news, and he didn't see anything online about where to find hookers in those places. He was sure they were big enough cities, but that wasn't any help without a street name or an intersection._

_And he had to find a girl, it had only been a day but he wanted to crawl out of his own body. He needed to fuck a girl because that would mean he was straight, if he could get off from a woman. Not that he doubted it, of course. But he had to have sex and so of course it had to be a girl. Woman. Whatever._

_He drove towards Columbus and drove around a little but there weren't any pretty girls on Sullivant and there weren't any on Broad either and he didn't know where else to look. He wanted to drive Sullivant and Broad again but figured the cops were probably watching those streets, that's why he went to Toledo in the first place._

_He told himself he'd just go home and jerk off but of course he found himself driving out of Columbus due north and of course once he saw the exit for Westerville he had to take it. He didn't go near the faggy school, the security guard had given him a look last time, one that said, "I'll remember you."_

_He found a café on the main street, parked in the back and found himself a seat near the window. He waited._

_He only saw Hummel for a few seconds as he drove by, and Hummel was inside his car and wearing sunglasses. Not that his eyes would have been visible from that distance anyway. Something eased in Dave Karofsky's chest, just for a few seconds, before pressing at his ribcage even more intently than before._

_He looked at his watch and swore; he'd be late again getting home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I surprise you or were you onto me all along? :)


	4. The Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My obsessive use of Google maps has, I'm pretty sure, given me a better understand of Ohio's geography than the Glee writers possess. Hopefully the exposition of it isn't too boring.
> 
> As we get more of the unsub's POV, some of the warnings get less clinical the way the BAU treats them and more graphic, so please read with care.

* * *

All of the victims were pale, with slender frames and high cheekbones. "They look like birds," Rossi sighed as he shuffled through the photos of them in life. Meeks had been thin to the point of gauntness, the legacy of drug abuse and more years as a sex worker than the others. Cornelius was a little heavy; she ran every day as part of an effort to drop 10 pounds. But as a whole they were a thin group, slips of women with narrow hips and pushup bras.

Three had brown eyes, though Lauri Webber was wearing violet contacts the day she died. Beck's were blue, and Caitlin Cornelius had large hazel eyes. In one photo they looked green, in another gold.

And of course, they all had light brown hair. Beck might have described hers as "dishwater blonde" and McKenzie had lowlights. Cornelius wore her hair to nearly her waist, while Webber kept hers short. But the color was an immediate similarity for anyone who looked at the group.

Cornelius proved the killer wouldn't only go after prostitutes and Webber proved that he wasn't limited to the Columbus area. Ohio panicked. The national news media arrived.

Tanning salons saw an explosion in business and women who'd never cared about their hair before rushed to bleach it or dye it black. There was an uptick in the sales of wigs and spray-on tans, but it was nothing to the increase in gun sales. Although Ohio law prohibited guns for people under 18, one father gave a proud interview about the personal handgun he'd bought his 14-year-old daughter. The police fined him; if they'd tried to arrest him or take the gun away they'd have had a rebellion on their hands. As it was, women carried their weapons openly into bars, schools and churches, ignoring the need for licenses or weapons bans in such places.

But nothing happened. A week dragged past, than another. There was a copycat, a man killing his brown-haired girlfriend. Ironically, one of the first giveaways was the care he took to leave no fingerprints behind. He also used a different knife, and when Hotch and Prentiss arrived to interview him he burst into tears and immediately confessed. "The bitch deserved to die," he told Prentiss as she cuffed him, "but what kind of sick fuck cuts off breasts?"

The team ran through the profile, found fourteen men with troubled pasts and hatred of a pale woman with brown hair. They all had an alibi for at least one of the murders, and none of their fingerprints matched anyway.

As the end of the third week approached, the BAU's role in Columbus became more confused. They were unhappy with the profile, but absent new information there was little they could do to refine it. The local LEOs were questioning their presence ("Surely you're needed elsewhere…" the police chief told them), and the head of the BAU was also pressuring Hotch to bring the team home. She said, "Look, if there's a new development in the case, you can certainly go back to Ohio, but it's unproductive to have so many agents out of the office like this."

Though he resented her tone, Hotch did largely agree with her. Although this gap between victims wasn't statistically very long, usually once a profile was given, the BAU did move on. But they knew they were missing something, and sensed it was something big; that made it difficult to go.

So Hotch made an unconventional decision. "We're going to have one last brainstorming session this afternoon, then most of the team will be going back to Quantico. Reid, Morgan, I'd like you two to stay here and continue to focus your attention on this case." He'd chosen the two carefully. He was team leader, as Morgan also had been for a time. With one of them staying behind, the team would have leadership experience in both places. Hotch was going home because being there for his son trumped Morgan's dog. Due to family commitments he was also bringing JJ and Prentiss back to Virginia. He'd debated between Rossi and Reid, but decided that between the two, Morgan worked better with Reid. Besides, Hotch had a feeling that this case might require one of Reid's intuitive leaps.

Neither Morgan nor Reid look happy to be away from home even longer, but they took the assignment without complaint. JJ looked uneasy to be separated from Reid—she would always carry the memories of Tobias Hankel with her—but settled for warning both men to be careful.

Once the logistics of the trip home had been worked out and go bags repacked, the full team sat around their conference table for the last time. With little else to do for the past few weeks, the members of the BAU had been obsessively searching for a connection between the places the bodies were found. As Rossi said, "This guy's more lucky than smart, but not many people are comfortable with all the suburbs of a city this size." Garcia's databases and Reid's prodigious memory gave them an edge in analyzing trends and finding patterns, but it was Morgan who finally came up with a possible connection.

He'd been thinking about how the unsub was likely young and how he almost certainly saw himself as very athletic, very alpha. If he was only a few years out of high school or college, then chances were high he'd been a student athlete. Looking into college sports conferences didn't yield any results, but when Morgan looked up the most direct route between central Columbus and Grove City High School, the park where Ashley Beck's body was found was directly along that route.

Give what they'd figured out about the likely location for the murder site, the unsub probably approached the next city of Hilliard from the north or east. The dumpster where he left Shawna was in a shopping complex he would have surely passed on his way to Darby High School had he come into town via Highway 33. Highway 33 also passed through Marysville, where the fourth victim had been abducted.

The last two dump sites were more difficult to tie in with Morgan's theory, because Cornelius's body was left at a rest area outside Gahanna. Many motorists who didn't know Gahanna itself would still see the rest area every day as they commuted. And the most recent victim had been left in New California, which was much too small to have a school district.

However, the rest area was still directly en route between Columbus and Gahanna's Lincoln High School. And New California also lay on Highway 33. Maybe the unsub planned to leave another victim in Hilliard, or maybe he'd had a different location in mind. The team speculated that driving north to find his victim and then back south to dispose of the body had left the killer rushed for time, and he hadn't made it as far as he wanted to leave the body.

It was only a loose theory, but supported by the fact that the high schools in Grove City, Hilliard and Gahanna were all part of the same athletic conference. There were 16 high schools in the conference, including schools in the suburbs of Dublin and Westerville, Lakeview High School along Highway 33, and even William McKinley High School in the more distant city of Lima.

"This unsub's whole identity is structured around his view of himself as strong and hyper-masculine" Morgan explained to Detective Callahan. "He was probably a bigshot athlete in his high school. That was the core of his identity. But it's stopped working for him; maybe he couldn't hack it at the university level, or didn't make it onto a college team at all. He definitely would have tried."

"It's unlikely his athletic failure is the stressor that triggered him into killing," Rossi added. "If that were the case, the outlet of his rage would be the men he sees as competitors. But it's a sound theory, Agent Morgan. It fits in with what little we know about him."

Almost to himself, Reid mused, "Is it possible he's still in high school?" Seeing the surprised and contemplative looks from the others, he explained further: "I know that would make him younger than the profile, but age is the factor most likely to be off anyway. Looking at these crimes, it seems like there's a mind behind them that's not unintelligent, and there's clearly some planning involved. No one has caught on to the kill site yet. But in other ways the crimes seem so sloppy and disorganized; maybe it's not low intelligence propelling that, but low experience."

He bit his lip like he was expecting them to dismiss the idea out of hand, but the team thought through the idea with the same intensity they'd given to Morgan's high school sports theory. Morgan himself was the first to respond. "The younger he is, the less likely he is to have already had run-ins with the law. Hence his prints not being in IAFIS. Besides, the longer he's been out of high school the less likely he will be to remember features along the route to different schools. Oh, he'll remember the games and the high school arenas, but the park as the bus came into town?"

"Not to mention some features change over time," said Prentiss. "I'll check on how long that shopping center in Hilliard has been there."

Before she could go, Hotch stopped her. "Let's say the unsub either is or was a high school athlete in the Ohio Capital Conference, even though that's far from proven. Where does that get us?"

Morgan answered. "Garcia is currently running searches on crimes from shoplifting to drug dealing to murder in the area between Toledo, Mansfield, Columbus and Lima. She's looking for people who potentially fit the profile and also potential victims. She could shift her attention to the communities with schools in this conference. We know the unsub hasn't been fingerprinted, so he hasn't been booked by police for anything, but she could quickly find out if a current student or recent graduate has changed his behavior recently. If he was abused as a child, Garcia could also find any records documenting it."

"She's already trying to find potential victims between the ages of 14 and 40," Reid said. Although the unsub's preference was clearly for younger women, they couldn't ignore the age of his first victim, and with each of the victims being younger, they couldn't be sure they knew how young the unsub would go. "Looking at a school yearbook would be a quick way to see if any students or faculty fit his victimology. Since he's left bodies south, east, west and northwest of Columbus, I recommend that she look at Westerville's high schools first. Westerville is directly due north of Columbus."

Garcia, who was listening to the conversation by now, typed quickly and reported, "It's got three high schools; West, South and North. Oh, and it also has a couple private schools."

"Private schools wouldn't be part of the same conference," Morgan told her. "Stick to the public ones for now."

"Copying that, and saving Northside Christian, Crawford Country Day and Dalton Academy for last. Next?"

Reid said, "After that, I'd look first at schools right off of Highway 33, like Hilliard, Dublin, Lakeview and maybe Lima."

"Even with my mad skills this will take time," she warned them, and they assured her that they understood.

Hotch was pleased about that afternoon's progress. It wasn't enough to change his mind about most of the team departing, since it was really just speculation. But it would give Morgan and Reid a few more avenues to explore, and he was encouraged by the way the two had been in tune with each other during the discussion.

JJ briefly spoke to the reporters still clustered around the police station, praising the various local police departments for their work and urging the public to be cautious but calm. One of them shouted questions at her back as she walked away. "Has the killer really stopped? Or is he just being more careful about where he hides the bodies?"

Every day, the police debated that very idea. Was he keeping bodies at the kill site now? Was he going further yet to find his victims, or had he moved to an entirely new part of the country? Could he have died himself, in a robbery gone wrong or a common car accident?

Of all the theories proposed by detectives and television personalities, none of them guessed the truth: the unsub was grounded.

* * *

_Dave's parents had finally caught on to the fact that he'd been leaving at the usual time in the morning for school without actually getting there. He should have just left that last one in Marysville instead of trying to make it to Dublin; as it was his mother got home before him and heard the message from the school about his "truancy."_

_They'd taken away his car keys and called the school personally at the start of every day, before and after lunch, and for a report of his attendance at the end of the day. He didn't know why they bothered at lunchtime since he wasn't allowed to go off-campus for lunch anyway._

_His parents took away his computer, too, and monitored his time online every night when Dave said he needed it for homework. They thought he was using drugs. He thought that was pretty funny. If they knew what he was really doing, they'd WISH it was drugs._

_Somehow, even grounded he managed to start dating a cheerleader named Vicky. He scored big points with her by telling her he thought her B-cup boobs were just fine the size they were. That was a lie; he thought they were too big. He even asked her if she'd ever considered getting a shorter haircut, but she said Coach Sylvester wouldn't let her._

_Vicky wasn't as easy as Brittany Pierce or Santana Lopez, but she was still pretty slutty, especially after a pack of wine coolers. He told her that condoms broke sometimes so the only way to make sure she didn't get knocked up was to do her in the ass._

_She was more agreeable to this than he thought she would be. She didn't usually get off when they had sex, but she faked that she did, and Dave wasn't going to tell her he knew any different. Even so, he could tell he was getting better at it. Sex. The satisfaction he got from that definitely made up for not having a spring season sport, which had always annoyed him in the past._

_The whole relationship thing was much easier than he thought it would be. He felt so much more confident these days. And he knew if people found out about IT, they'd say a lot of things about him, but one thing they wouldn't accuse him of was being a fag._

_Still… he paid that jewfro kid for Rachel Berry's facebook account information. When the jewfro thought that meant Dave was into the big-nosed freak too and wanted to like, work together to get a dirty photo of her, Dave calmly took his shirt collar and said, "Mention it to me again, or to anyone else, and I'll kill you. Got it, kike?"_

_Jewfro had been all apologies and nervous looks after that, not that Dave paid much attention. He didn't need to push losers into lockers or throw them into dumpsters anymore. He still tossed a slushy sometimes, especially at the Glee Club freaks, but that was just for fun._

_His parents wanted to look at every facebook friend he had (he knew they had guesses about which ones were the drug dealers) but after that, when they saw the colors and layout of facebook on his computer at night, they didn't try for a closer look. So every night when his homework was done, he logged on as Rachel Berry and went to look at Kurt Hummel's page._

_He knew deep down that all his confused feelings were Hummel's fault. Berry was friends with Hummel's prep school_ _**boyfriend** _ _too, but Dave didn't trust himself to visit that tool's profile. His parents were watching too closely for him to get angry around them. He saw a lot of pictures of the guy on Hummel's page though, and the douche was always leaving links and comments and "likes"._

_Dave went through all of Hummel's photo albums, all his groups and games and the pages he was a "fan" of. He looked at the photos of Westerville shops that Hummel uploaded with his iPhone and the witty descriptions of just what Hummel thought of their merchandise. Dave had been to a lot of them in the last few months._

_The Monday morning his parents expressed their pride in his "progress" and returned his keys, Dave drove straight to school. He wasn't stupid. He took Vicky for a drive that night and she blew him in his car. He went to school on Tuesday, too._

_Wednesday morning he went to homeroom, then skipped. He stopped at home first and cleared everything out of his car except the tire iron, winter blanket and duct tape, which he put in the trunk. He got the sex toy and the padded restraints and put them in a paper lunch bag and hid it under the passenger seat._

_Last night, and the night before, and the night before that, when he'd stroked himself and imagined it was Hummel he was touching, when he woke in the morning gasping Kurt's name, he'd hated himself, but he'd hated the little fairy even more than that, for doing this to him._

_He was going to Westerville and he was going to kill that faggot. Dave was sure if he did this, the dreams would stop._


	5. Everything Comes Together

Penelope Garcia knew a lot of her work looked like technical wizardry to the BAU team. And she could sift through data like nobody's business. But her work could still be time-consuming and dull. For the yearbooks in the Ohio case, first she contacted schools to get the list of students, faculty and staff for the current year and the six years previous. She ran two searches on the yearbooks, one for the unsub and one for his potential victims.

The unsub search was much simpler; a basic search for all the names of boys flagged with behavioral problems. Certain classifications of disciplinary action were automatically discarded, like tardiness or fights with other boys. Outbursts against women and girls received a high priority. Penelope also had the program look for a sudden spike in incidents in the last few months; any kind of incident, from starting fights to not doing homework. When little information about disciplinary incidents was given, she had to go through the records herself and try to piece together the nature of the kid's problems (usually it looked like drugs). Some schools were better than others about this; Dublin seemed to document every broken nail, where Lima often provided no information at all. Penelope assigned a likely threshold for probability factors for the unsub, and all the names to meet that threshold were sent to Derek and Spencer in Columbus.

That was the easy but the less promising part, because they just knew so little about the unsub. However, they did have an increasingly clear idea of his victimology. First Penelope excluded from her list all males, and women over 40. Then she ran a program to eliminate the women who didn't match the unsub's "type"- the women and girls of color, the overweight and very blonde. Fortunately, the digital files the schools provided were in color even if their printed yearbooks weren't; if she'd had to define what shade of grainy gray for the program to include, her sample would have been a lot larger.

Even so, there were a lot of pale, thin brunettes in Ohio's high schools. JJ and Prentiss had worked up a message to send to schools with a request to pass it on to potential victims. Its tone was reassuring, but it did ask the girls and women in question if they'd had an encounter within the last four months with a hostile young man. When one of the flagged results also had disciplinary notes in her file, either against her or more importantly complaints she had made against a male student, those files were examined and then sent to Columbus.

Penelope had reduced a little of the time-consuming work by eliminating overlaps (since as long as a student never moved, he or she would appear in four consecutive yearbooks). But she checked every double carefully to make sure it really was the same student and not a different person with the same name. The people without photos gave her the most trouble. She knew a girl growing up named Akiko Takahashi who was Swedish and icy blond. Akiko's mother loved Japanese culture so much she'd give her daughter a Japanese name, and her second marriage was to a Japanese man, whose name Akiko took. It was enough to guarantee Penelope would never make assumptions about someone's ethnicity or coloring based on his or her name.

So yes, she was magic with computers but it was still a slow process. She looked at pictures of young women, some pouting prettily, some all ponytails and bracketed teeth, and wondered if somewhere in the American Midwest, the girl she looked at was huddled beneath her blankets, afraid to go to school. What if the next victim—and they were all expecting another one—was someone Penelope had sent a message to? What if she wasn't, and had been excluded from the results somehow?

She looked at the photos of young men too, their mouths in awkward teen smiles or in the hard flat lines of boys wanting to look tough. She knew it could be an athlete, so sometimes after emailing a file to Derek and Spencer she'd pull up the team photo, look at the track star from Westerville, the quarterback from Hilliard. Even the macho ones looked so young. She wondered if she was looking at any monsters, asked their images, "Is it you?"

* * *

_Dave was lucky._

_He settled down in a coffee shop near the window and looked across the street at three of Kurt Hummel's favorite shops, all in a row; a sheet music store, a secondhand bookshop and some kind of faggy clothes place that said VINTAGE in the window in big red letters. He even had a newspaper so he could hide his face if Hummel came into the coffee shop._

_He was pretty sure Hummel had never seen him on his trips to Westerville in the past, but it had looked like Hummel had a feeling of being watched. He'd looked around really slowly a few times and seemed worried, and once Dave had just managed to duck behind something to avoid being spotted. For a while Hummel had stopped leaving his prissy school after lunch, or been with a pack of ten or more other boys, including his preppy boyfriend. But it had been a while since Dave had watched. He'd gotten—busy. Besides, he didn't need much time today; he could afford to wait a while._

_Sure enough, he had to wait over an hour, drinking his pop and then another and pretending to read the paper, but around 12:15 he saw the Boyfriend's station wagon drive past and turn at the corner, headed around to the parking lot at the back of the block of stores. Dave rose without hurry, taking the newspaper and pop with him._

_He drove his own car around the two blocks and parked blocking the Boyfriend's car slightly. It was an ugly green Chevy POS Dave could hardly believe a rich kid would own, and he definitely couldn't understand why a fancy gay like Hummel let himself be seen in it. The Chevy was parked behind the music store. They probably wouldn't be long, it was only their lunch break. The parking lot was empty; it was a quiet Wednesday afternoon in a quiet Ohio suburb._

_Dave put the blanket in the back passenger seat and left the duct tape in the trunk. He took out the tire iron, left the trunk slightly ajar and stood in the shadow of the building behind where the door would open out._

_He breathed slowly. The street was quiet and he doubted he'd get caught, but he felt strangely unconcerned about the possibility. He'd strike hard, both hands gripping the metal, and he'd feel the crunch of Hummel's skull caving in. While the Boyfriend gaped, Dave would maybe hit him too or maybe just toss the tire iron in the car and drive away. Maybe he'd run over the boytoy. Maybe he'd run over them both._

_The door opened, and Dave could hear their voices. He'd know Hummel's voice anywhere. He raised the iron over his head and brought it down hard as the first boy came around the door towards him._

_But it wasn't Hummel; it was the boyfriend sprawled on the ground as Dave stood frozen over him with the iron ready for another strike. Hummel's instinct was to rush forward to kneel beside his boyfriend, not to turn back towards the shop. The door fell closed behind him. As he reached towards his boyfriend's head he looked up and his eyes locked with Dave's._

_His lips parted, but before he had a chance to speak or scream Dave warned him, "Don't make a sound."_

* * *

Morgan knew Officer Dixon meant well, he really did. But the man only had a few stories, and he persisted in telling them over and over again. He'd also asked Morgan, with evident sincerity, if they were sure the killer was white. Morgan hadn't said anything about it, but someone on the team had found out and now the guy was stuck manning the hotline.

If only JJ had known how much Dixon would like it, she would have surely come up with something else.

Dixon was one of those people truly convinced he wasn't a racist, or anti-Semite, or homophobe, but who was always a little too conscious of people of color, too quick to get defensive about his "jokes", telling people to lighten up and stop being so politically correct. Now he was regaling the other men in the station with some of the crazier "tips" he'd either taken or heard about. Morgan had heard most of them before. Reid hadn't yet, and was escaping joining the conversation by studying a file. Morgan knew he'd read it 20 times over by now and that he was faking to avoid being asked his opinion, leaving Morgan to make nice with the local LEOs.

"And she says to me, she says, I know this fella kills white girls, but if he took a look at me he'd be gone on my ladycurves. I gotta protect my ladycurves." Morgan smiled faintly at the crude impression and thought about how next time they went out to interview prostitutes, when they hit on Reid, Morgan was totally not going to help him escape.

"And I hear some gay boy called in and said he thought the killer was after him too." The exaggerated, high-pitched voice was accompanied by a limp-wrist gesture. "I'm practically a girl, protect me officers!"

Another local cop chuckled and said, "Did you tell the guy killers don't change their pattern that much?"

Dixon took a swig of his coffee. "I didn't talk to that one. Good thing, I probably would have laughed. Nah, the fag thought it was some ex-boyfriend or something, like half the other people who call in. Or maybe that it was a closet case, I don't remember. So then, there's this other lady who calls and does, you know, fit the vic type a  **little** —"

"She has breasts?" asked the same cop dryly.

"Ha! Yeah so she calls all nervous about the motion light going on and a noise at her door, but it's actually because she got scared and bolted the cat door, it's the cat trying to come in. Hey Agent, uh, Doctor, you OK?"

Reid had stopped pretending to read the file. He was staring straight ahead with the wild-eyed intense look he sometimes got when thinking very hard. Morgan raised a hand to keep the other cops from speaking, and asked gently, "Reid?"

That snapped Reid to attention, but he looked at Dixon first. "Who told you about the gay boy calling in?"

Dixon looked confused. "I don't remember. We all swap stories."

Reid stood abruptly, his long limbs looking more gangly than ever, and disappeared into the small conference room still assigned to the two remaining BAU members. He still looked like his mind was racing, and Morgan decided not to disturb him for the moment. But before Reid went, he said one word to Dixon: "try."

* * *

_There was blood on the tire iron and it dripped down towards Dave's hands. The iron felt heavy raised above his head like this. "Not a sound," he repeated, and Hummel closed his mouth, and Dave knew the next move was up to him. He could do what he came here to do, hit Hummel, a few times even to make sure. But Hummel was staring at him like he'd never seen Dave before. His eyes looked very blue today._

_Instead Dave said, "Stand up." Hummel did, slowly. "Take out your phone and drop it on the ground. Then raise your hands and back up. More." Hummel shuddered when his iPhone hit the pavement, but backed up until his legs hit the bumper of Dave's car._

_Dave hadn't planned for this, but somehow he knew exactly what to say. "Open the trunk. Rip off a piece of the duct tape and put it over your mouth." When Hummel hesitated, Dave lowered the tire iron slowly until it hovered a foot above the Boyfriend's head. Hummel swallowed audibly and ripped off a piece of tape, smoothening it over his mouth with his long fingers._

" _Now get in the trunk and put the tape around your ankles." Dave walked around the prone body on the ground, keeping the iron in ready position. He was careful to step around the growing puddle of blood; he didn't want it all over his shoes. The car was close enough that when he stepped around he could see Hummel but also still hit the Boyfriend if he wanted to._

_Hummel's hands shook as he bound his own ankles. Dave told him, "Now lay on your stomach and put your hands together behind your back." Hummel gave him a long look before doing so, and it shouldn't have been possible, but with his face partially covered his eyes looked even bigger. Dave realized he was hard._

_The instant the tire iron clattered on the ground Hummel was struggling and twisting away, but Dave was faster and there was nowhere for Hummel to go. Dave managed to grab both of Hummel's wrists before Hummel could tear the tape off his mouth. The bones felt small and breakable in his grip; he'd noticed that before with the women too._

_Hummel thrashed beneath him, but Dave was a lot stronger. He held both wrists with one hand and used the other to retrieve the duct tape, wrapping it tightly and securely several times around. Then he closed the trunk door._

_He picked up Hummel's phone and tossed it and the tape on the passenger seat. He was merging onto the highway when he remembered he'd left the tire iron behind. There was too much adrenaline coursing through him for him to be really worried about it though. The parking lot had stayed deserted the whole time. Too bad he hadn't thought to run over the Boyfriend, but then he didn't really care one way or the other what happened to him. That didn't matter. He had Kurt, and could still kill him if he wanted to._

_Or he could do something else._


	6. Everything Falls Apart

_Dave played his music loud and was careful to drive the speed limit. Thanks to all the pop he'd had when he was waiting that morning he had to stop to pee. Instead of going to a rest area or gas station he took an exit—Pottersburg—and drove down a few country roads before stopped at a deserted stretch and peeing off the side of the road. He'd already turned off Hummel's phone, but now he stomped on it a few times before throwing it into the ditch._

_He wasn't intending to open the trunk but paused when he glanced at it. One of the taillights had been kicked out and the front half of a foot was sticking out._

_Dave yanked the trunk door open. Hummel must have been trying to rub the duct tape off his mouth; it was coming loose around the edges. He looked frightened, which pleased Dave; he hated it when Hummel acted like nothing bothered him, like Dave was beneath his notice._

_Dave didn't say a word. He took the blanket out of the passenger seat and spread it out on the gravel shoulder of the road. Then he got the roll of duct tape and tore off a few big pieces, which he put firmly over the first gag. He stroked Hummel's cheek as he patted the edges into place, and Hummel jerked away. Dave laughed._

_He picked Hummel up, unconcerned with his struggles, and carried him to the blanket and rolled him up in it, feet to neck. He wanted to wrap him head to toe but thought maybe Hummel wouldn't be able to breathe then, and Dave didn't want to_ _**accidentally** _ _kill him. Dave secured the edge of the blanket with more duct tape and then put Hummel on the floor of the backseat of the car. He closed the trunk and hoped he wouldn't get stopped in the next 30 miles for the broken light._

_He wasn't stopped. Hummel flopped around like a fish for 10 minutes or so, then quieted._

* * *

"Breathe," Kurt thought. "Breathe. Oh god Blaine oh my god oh my god it was  **him**  all along, is Blaine dead? He can't be dead, he—OK. Breathe. Don't cry. If you cry, your nose will get blocked and you won't be able to breathe. And you are  _not_  dying in a smelly blanket in the back of a car."

Kurt couldn't believe how easily he'd let Karofsky abduct him. He'd even helped, getting into the trunk like an obedient pet and putting the duct tape on himself. That was the big thing he remembered from talking about self-defense with the girls; never get into the abductor's car. That sent chances of survival plummeting down. He wasn't sure how much, but he remembered it was a lot.

But Blaine was there before him again on the ground and Kurt hadn't even had a chance to see if he was still breathing or how much blood there was in his dark hair. Karofsky would absolutely have hit Blaine again, Kurt was sure of it. The threat was just as genuine as when Karofsky had asked Kurt if he'd told about The Kiss, and said if Kurt did tell anyone he'd kill him. In that moment, the threat of that bloody piece of metal was all Kurt could understand. He hadn't had a choice.

Some car expert he'd turned out to be though. If he'd managed to pop the trunk he could have gotten someone on the highway to notice him for sure; waving as much of his foot as he could fit through the broken taillight didn't seem to have done anything besides get Karofsky to take more precautions.

Was this Karofsky following through on his threat to kill Kurt? But if it was, why go to so much trouble? Why not just kill him in the parking lot? For all that he knew perfectly well who had hurt Blaine and stolen him, Kurt realized he had no idea who Karofsky was. There was a gleam in his eyes that looked unhinged, and as afraid of him as Kurt had been back when he went to McKinley, it was nothing to how dangerous Karofsky seemed now.

The car was moving slower now, turning more corners. It was off the highway. Kurt told himself that when Karofsky tried to get him out of the car, Kurt would headbutt him and crawl to the next house. If he lay still now and Karofsky didn't suspect anything and got dazed, and Kurt managed to get to the next house and stand up despite the tape and blanket and get the doorbell with his nose or shoulder…. They were stopping.

Karofsky got out of the car and went briefly into the house before returning for Kurt. Kurt tried the headbutt, which Karofsky easily dodged as he threw Kurt over his shoulder. The blanket took the power out of his attempted kicks. Kurt tried to get a good look at the area as he was taken inside the… cabin? He saw it was a wooded area and the buildings were much further apart than in a city. He could just make out the outline of another cabin beyond some trees. Even if the headbutt had worked, he never would have made it that far.

Still, his heart stuttered in his chest as the door closed behind him. "Why are you doing this?" he tried to ask, but the tape made it unintelligible. It didn't look like Karofsky was listening anyway.

He carried Kurt into a... oh god, into a bedroom, and dumped him on the bed, unrolling him from the musty blanket. Kurt half-expected to see bloodstains and piles of human hair, but the room was clean and unremarkable.

Karofsky had a knife now, a very big knife. "Don't struggle," he ordered, and Kurt found the order pretty convincing. He forced Kurt onto his stomach and used the knife to cut through the duct tape. Then he flipped Kurt back onto his back and put what looked like a strip of leather on each wrist before tying both to the bed. When he tied Kurt's ankles to the bed and then cut the tape from them, Kurt felt like a sacrificial lamb. He had never been so scared, and had no idea what might be next. As Karofsky tugged off Kurt's shoes, Kurt's mind raced with ideas, each more sickening than the one before it.

At first Karofsky did nothing. No, that was wrong—he stared. He swept his gaze over Kurt like he was memorizing every detail. Kurt tried to take comfort in the fact that he was wearing clothes at least, but it was small consolation, since the stare made him  _feel_  like he was naked. He closed his eyes and turned his head away from Karofsky, but still felt the other's presence.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that; he had no sense of time. He thought about his father and whether he knew yet that Kurt was missing. Carole and Finn would comfort him. Well, Finn  _might_  comfort him, but he also might say the worst possible thing. He would call everyone though and tell everybody in New Directions. The Warblers would be gathered at the hospital waiting for word on Blaine but some of them would be out looking for Kurt. Some of them had heard a little about Karofsky, but no real details and not his name. Blaine was the only one who knew everything. Dalton's security would be furious that someone had gotten through their protection, but Kurt knew it wasn't their fault. It was his fault for venturing off-campus. It was all his fault.

He knew Karofsky was still there because of the other boy's breathing. It sounded loud in the quiet room.

Kurt tried to think about anything  _but_  Blaine because when his thoughts turned that direction they became a roar of Blaine Blaine Blaine and he started to panic. He wished he believed in God so he could silently pray and derive some kind of peace from it. But all he could see was Blaine at that awkward angle on the ground, the blood pooling around him.

He heard the growl of a zipper and felt like his heart was pounding in his ears. He still didn't open his eyes, and jumped about a foot when he felt large hands on his own pants. He flinched away but the hands unbuttoned and unzipped them anyway. They did not pull the pants down or touch his underwear, just hovered by the zipper for a moment.

Kurt wasn't that surprised when his Dalton blazer was unbuttoned and pushed open, but he was completely unprepared for the cold hand sliding under his shirt and undershirt, resting on his stomach and then moving farther up his chest before stopping over his heart. It was like a large, cold weight pressing into him. The other hand touched his cheek, moved upward, fingers threading through his hair and gripping a handful. They weren't pulling his hair; it was more like his head was being held in place.

Then he felt lips on his neck.

They were gentle kisses, feather-soft, which made it somehow worse.

"Open your eyes," Karofsky said, and when Kurt didn't he bit lightly at Kurt's neck, using his teeth and tongue to make a mark. Kurt gasped behind the gag, but didn't open his eyes. If he opened his eyes it would be real. Karofsky had already taken too much from him; he was the first boy to show an attraction to Kurt, but it was a twisted attraction. It didn't make Kurt feel flattered and desirable, it made him feel dirty. He had stolen Kurt's first kiss with a boy, for all that Blaine had assured Kurt it didn't count, and turned something that should have been breathless and awkward and sweet into something violent. And while he hadn't been the only one at McKinley to bully and humiliate Kurt, he was the only one to inspire genuine fear.

In the few weeks since Kurt and Blaine had started dating, they'd been content with kissing—wonderful kissing—and fully-clothed cuddling. Blaine had nibbled along his neck, dropping kisses and teasing Kurt with his tongue, whispering endearments and telling Kurt, "I'd want you no matter what you looked like, but you're just. So. Beautiful." Kurt had felt like something precious. He'd scolded Blaine lightly for running his fingers through Kurt's hair and messing it up, and Blaine had petted the hair back into place and told Kurt he looked like a pleased cat.

Karofsky had no right at all to touch Kurt in the same way, to make a kiss feel cold and frightening when he knew a kiss could send warm pleasure fluttering and uncurling in his stomach. So no, Kurt would not do what Karofsky said. Kurt felt the large fingers tighten in his hair and braced himself for some punishment.

But just then, an alarm or timer of some kind started beeping. For a moment Karofsky didn't move, but then Kurt heard him sigh and the hands withdrew. The mattress moved as Karofsky stepped away. The hem of Kurt's shirt was left in disarray and it rode up, exposing Kurt's stomach.

Karofsky silenced the alarm and said, "I have to go home for a little while." That surprised Kurt into opening his eyes; Karofsky looked annoyed, but not at Kurt. He disappeared into the adjacent room and after a minute Kurt heard a toilet flush. Karofsky's jeans were rebuttoned when he came out and he asked casually, "Do you need to pee?"

He hadn't been aware of it through the fear before, but actually Kurt did. He nodded mutely. Karofsky untied him from the bed, leaving the leather straps dangling from Kurt's wrists and ankles. He had the knife ready in one hand, and wrapped the other arm around Kurt's middle to half-escort, half-carry him to the bathroom. Once there, he let Kurt go and retreated to the doorway, where he stayed, watching.

Kurt could never have imagined going to the bathroom with someone watching him, much less a kidnapper, much less David Karofsky. He told himself to be grateful Karofsky hadn't "helped" him, and he needed to pee so badly his humiliation wasn't enough to stop him.

After washing his hands, Kurt glared at Karofsky and very deliberately refastened his pants, tucked in his shirt and buttoned his blazer. In response, Karofsky set the knife on the counter-well away from Kurt-and stepped forward, once again easily trapping both of Kurt's wrists in one hand, catching at the blazer and  _tearing_  it open again. The buttons went flying everywhere. Somehow, Kurt's school tie had been left undisturbed until now; Karofsky loosened it and pulled it off, then ripped the front of Kurt's shirt open as easily as the blazer. He let go of Kurt's wrists long enough to drag the blazer and dress shirt off, leaving only his undershirt.

Once his wrists and hands were free of the layers of cloth, Kurt struck out with all his strength, the blow sending Karofsky staggering back a step. Kurt tried a high kick, which Karofsky mostly dodged but which still glanced off his hip. Kurt had his back to the wall and was lightning fast with his hands flat in cheerleading "blades". He tried to slide along the wall towards the door-and the knife-while keeping Karofsky at bay.

But it wasn't to be. Karofsky surged towards him and slammed Kurt against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. It was hard to catch his breath with the tape over his mouth and Karofsky made short work of restraining him again, wrapping one of the leather straps around both wrists and fastening it. And now Kurt could feel that it wasn't just a strip of leather, but an actual leather cuff.

He was pressed into the wall by the weight of Karofsky's body, and his cotton undershirt had never felt so thin. Karofsky smirked at Kurt and unbuttoned and unzipped his pants just like before. Then he gave Kurt's pants a quick tug; not enough to pull them off, but enough to leave them hanging dangerously low on Kurt's narrow hips.

He dragged Kurt back into the bedroom and retied him to the bed. With one last look of mingled fury and want, Karofsky shrugged on his coat and left the room, closing the door behind him. Kurt thought he could make out the front door opening and closing a moment later.

He didn't understand why, but now that he was alone the panic he'd been holding at bay all afternoon bubbled up and he shook, tears streaming down his face. Trying to stop himself from crying just made it worse. He tried to rub away the tears on his shoulder—his shoulders already ached from being tied awkwardly above his head.

And even when the tears were gone he kept steadily rubbing his shoulder against his cheek, pushing at the edges of the duct tape gag. He was only noticing now how cold the room was; he doubted heat was turned on in the cabin any higher than necessary to keep the pipes from freezing. His shirt and blazer were in a pile on the floor in just the next room, but they might as well have been in Paris for all the good they did him. He shivered and wondered how long Karofsky planned to leave him here.

After a few minutes he started stretching and moving his legs as much as he could within the restraints in a mostly-futile effort to stay warm.


	7. Wednesday (Part 1)

12:40pm

As she pulled into the parking lot, Mai Yang knew she only had a few minutes before she had to go back to work, but the owner of her favorite vintage clothing shop had told her he'd have a new box of clothes out in the store on Wednesday. All thoughts of a new dress or strappy shoes were forgotten when she saw the boy lying on the pavement. He was wearing some kind of school uniform she'd seen around town before, and there was blood everywhere. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and dialed 911 and grabbed the emergency first aid kit her boyfriend insisted she have in the car at all times.

She poked her head in the clothing store and called to the owner, "Someone's been beaten up in the parking lot!" The owner went to get the people working at the other shops on the block as Mai knelt next to the boy. "Are you OK?" Mai asked, then realized how inane that was. "Can you hear me? …he's not responding," she told the operator. The woman on the other end of the line calmly talked her through checking if the boy was breathing (he was) and whether he was still bleeding (she couldn't be sure). "It looks like he got his head smashed in," Mai said. "I'm afraid to touch him."

She could already hear the sirens, and three minutes after she hit "call" on her phone an ambulance was pulling into the lot, followed by two police cars. The paramedics gently moved Mai out of their way.

The lady who worked at the bookstore went to put up the "closed" signs on all the shop doors and lock them up. The owner of the clothing store pointed out to the cops the bloody tire iron lying a few feet away. The man who worked at the music store told them, "I know him—he's one of those Dalton boys, he comes in here all the time. He was just in here with another boy. They couldn't have left more than 10 minutes ago."

"Could you describe the boy he was with?" asked an officer.

"About the same age. Pale, thin, kind of pretty. He was a Dalton student too. I got the impression they might be boyfriends."

"Did they seem to be getting along?"

"Yes, definitely. They were laughing and joking around. They were talking about some rehearsal for later today."

"—Miss?"

Mai realized an officer was talking to her and tried a smile that wavered as the ambulance started up its siren again and pulled out of the parking lot. She made an effort to focus on the officer.

"Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

She nodded, and started telling the story again. A distant part of her mind noted that she'd be late going back to work, and that the noise and activity was starting to attract a crowd.

* * *

 

1:30pm

The BAU team in Quantico was in on afternoon's meeting via a conference call, waiting along with Morgan and Detective Callahan for Reid to gather his thoughts. He paced back and forth a few times across the room, then stopped and asked abruptly, "What if the unsub doesn't hate women?"

Without waiting for a reply, he explained, "We've been making an assumption about the cut hair and breast mutilations, that they represent the unsub's misogyny. We've been thinking they are meant to humiliate the victims and take away their symbolic power over him. But what if our unsub is more pragmatic than that? What if the pain and fear of the victims is just a side effect because the unsub doesn't actually want a woman, but a man?"

Callahan challenged, "I'm confused. If the unsub wanted a man, why would he abduct and murder women?"

"Because he doesn't  _want_  to be attracted to men," Reid answered. "We think he's young, athletic and aggressive. A lot of the schools in the athletic conference we've been examining are in smaller towns, which are historically more homophobic, I have some statistics…."

"Let's skip the statistics for now," Hotch instructed.

Reid pushed his glasses up his nose. "Um, yes. Well, there have always been elements of this unsub's style that don't seem to fit together into the conventional profiles of rapists. If the cuts are trophies, why does he sometimes leave the hair behind and in the first case leave the breasts unharmed? If the cuts are ritualistic, Webber's hair would have been cut even though it was already short. If the cuts are meant to maximize suffering, why has the unsub started using lube and padded restraints?"

He started pacing again, thinking aloud. "It's commonly thought that homophobes with visceral, intense hatred towards gay people maybe be repressing homosexual urges themselves. A recent study at the University of Rochester empirically confirmed there's an element of truth to that. So let's imagine that our unsub, who hates and is unsettled by gay people, develops an attraction to a man. His first instinct is to be even more overt in his homophobia, while simultaneously pursuing women even more aggressively.

"But he either can't or won't avoid the object of his attraction. Maybe they work together or even go to school together—we know that stalking behaviors can start very early, in the teens or even in childhood. What I'm proposing is that this unsub is desperate to prove himself with a woman, but his obsession is forcing him to "rewrite" each encounter to make them more like the man he's stalking—by shortening their hair, by removing their breasts, and possibly even by using an object to create the suggestion of a penis."

"We know he always rapes them anally," Morgan mused.

In the Virginia conference room, Rossi leaned forward, his face filling the screen. "How would you characterize the motivation of this stalker? Is he an "Intimacy Seeker" believing his victim is his true love, or is he an "Incompetent" who knows his victim doesn't desire him, but doesn't care?"

Reid answered, "Actually I would guess that if anything he's closer to the "Resentful" stalker. I'm theorizing that he's physically very attracted to his victim, but whether he  _likes_  his victim is anyone's guess. If he'd successfully repressed his homosexual desires in the past, I presume he'd actually be very angry at the person to puncture that delusion."

"I don't know," said Prentiss. "Are we really considering this?"

Morgan shrugged. "One of the LEOs here heard that a "boy" had called the hotline because of either an ex-boyfriend or a closeted harasser. Reid, you don't think it's an ex-boyfriend, a "Rejected Suitor" stalker?"

Reid shook his head. "If he was, that would suggest some level of acceptance of his homosexual desires, even if the relationship had only existed within his head."

"I've asked this before," Hotch said, "about the athlete theory, which is still far from proven by the way. Let's say this profile has possibilities, and I think that it does. What do we do about it?"

Reid's reply was immediate. "We look for potential male victims. We've been excluding them so far. We look specifically for reports of bullying and assault based on sexual orientation."

"Can Garcia include that in her search?" Callahan asked.

"I'm already on it," Penelope told her. "I have the school rosters broken down already. It won't take long for me to input this new search in." Her participation in the call was audio only; after a moment they all could hear rapid typing.

"It's a long shot, I know," Reid admitted to Morgan as the call disconnected.

"But it feels better in your gut, doesn't it?" Morgan said. "I knew you'd think of something, Kid."

* * *

 

2:00pm

Officer Petrie's car was a notorious lemon for the workers of Hummel Tires and Lube, and when he walked in, he was greeted by his nickname. The garage's owner, Burt Hummel, said with a smile, "Your engine finally give out on you, Skip?"

"'fraid I'm here on official business," Skip told him. "Can we talk in your office?"

A look came into Burt's eyes, the look of any parent upon sensing something wrong. "Sure." He wiped his oily hands on a faded cloth as he showed Skip to the office. "Is everything OK?"

"The name Blaine Anderson ring a bell?"

Burt's expression grew guarded. "Yeah, he's my son's boyfriend. It's only been a few weeks but I've seen it coming for a couple months."

"Well apparently Anderson was found beaten up this afternoon and no one can find Kurt. You heard from him?"

"No…. Has Blaine said anything?"

Skip shook his head. "Now I don't want you to panic because we don't know what's going on here, but Anderson's in a pretty bad way. I…" he trailed off.

Burt gripped the handles of his chair. "Tell me."

"I understand a tire iron was involved. Anyway, some officers from Westerville are on their way up to come up and talk to you, and they'll probably stay to talk to the rest of the family too. They want to get some fingerprints—"

"Is Kurt a  _suspect_?" Burt demanded.

"Not by me," Skip said. "Look, these cops don't know Kurt. So they'll be careful and check everything, and they can use the fingerprints to rule that out for sure. They'll want to know all about him and Blaine Anderson and that'll help us all find him, OK? Burt?"

Burt took off his baseball cap and rubbed his head, then looked Skip in the eye. "What do I have to do?"

"I suggest meeting the guys from Westerville at your house, so they can get their fingerprints set and don't disrupt your business. Plus someone should be home in case Kurt calls."

Burt nodded slowly. He left his employee Frank in charge of the shop and with instructions to drop whatever he was doing to answer if anyone called. He called the hospital and asked Carol to get Finn and come home. Skip offered to go along for moral support and to make sure the Westerville cops didn't try to walk all over them, but Burt declined.

Burt rushed home and checked the answering machine, but there weren't any messages. Carol and Finn hadn't heard from Kurt either.

The Westerville cops seemed to think Kurt and Blaine had a fight in the 20 seconds it took them to leave some shop they'd been at, like Kurt had hurt his own boyfriend and then run off. They thought maybe he had an accomplice, someone Burt hadn't met. They didn't like that Kurt was gay, Burt could tell. They weren't taking his concerns about Kurt's safety seriously.

One of them did pause after they'd taken several fingerprints from Kurt's room and fingerprinted the family for comparison purposes. He was looking at a photo of Kurt.

"He look like a criminal to you?" Burt questioned.

"Anyone can look like a criminal once they get a hold of a tire iron," said the officer. "But no, he reminds me of someone. Not sure who. Anyway, be sure to let us know if he calls."

* * *

 

3:00pm

Dave was ready and waiting by the phone when his mother came home. She'd rearranged her whole schedule to finish and be home by 3 every day. "You were absent from all your classes except homeroom today," she accused.

"I know," Dave said. "Vicky's father is in the hospital. I don't really know what's going on but she's pretty upset. You can call her and check if you want."

His mother frowned at him. "I think I will."

Vicky, sweet stupid Vicky, hadn't questioned why he needed to get away from his parents when he called her on his drive home. She agreed his grounding was way too strict for just skipping a little school and didn't have a problem lying to his parents. "Can we hang out later though?" she asked.

"Maybe," he hedged.

Once his mother hung up, looking embarrassed for doubting him but refusing to apologize, Dave said, "Could I go back to the hospital? I don't know if I'm any help but at least I can go for food and coffee and be there with her, at the hospital or home or whatever. I promise I'll go to school tomorrow or tell you beforehand if she needs me again."

She was doubtful—she called his father at work to check with him—but eventually they agreed, since "you've been doing so well. But visiting hours at the hospital are over at 8, so we'll expect you home by 9 at the latest."

"OK, thanks Mom. Love you!" He'd put some duct tape over the taillight, hoping it would come across as "broken" rather than "gone". 40 minutes back to the cabin, and he wasn't about to speed now.

* * *

 

3:30pm

When a call came into the Columbus station "for the Feds", Morgan and Reid braced themselves for the news of another body. But instead, the voice on the phone said, "We were running prints in connection with an assault this afternoon, and we got a match with your suspect."

Morgan said, "Could you send us the results and copies of everything to do with this assault? What's the nature of it?"

The other officer said, "It's the damnedest thing. We checked the results twice, because it's not anything like the other things this guy's done. A teenage boy got beaten with a tire iron. It got left behind, and your killer's prints are all over it."

Morgan, Reid and Callahan all stared at each other, and Morgan asked slowly, "What does the victim look like? Have you been able to talk to him?"

There was a pause, then, "Short but muscular, about 16 years old. Dark Caucasian or maybe mixed race complexion, black hair. And no, he's pretty badly off. He only got hit once, but it was a direct hit to the head. Fractured his skull. Anyway, the victim was last seen with his boyfriend 10 minutes before he was found, and now the boyfriend's missing."

At the word "boyfriend" Callahan had briefly closed her eyes. Morgan asked, "The boyfriend's name?"

"Kurt Hummel, from Lima. It's a couple hours north of here. We already went up there and got his fingerprints, and they're not a match."

Callahan was already calling to arrange a helicopter to Lima. As Morgan dialed Garcia, he commented, "If Hummel's not a match then he's not our unsub."

"I wouldn't expect him to be," said Reid. "This unsub wouldn't openly be in a gay relationship. I do, however, think it's more likely that one or both of these boys know the unsub."

"Or that he's devolving and they set him off. Penelope baby, we've got new info coming in for you."

* * *

 

3:32pm

Penelope clicked open the file from the Westerville police and sighed, "Oh, sweeties," at the photos. Blaine Anderson was a handsome, polished boy with bright dark eyes, and the photo someone had snapped of his injury at the scene was ugly in every way.

And Kurt Hummel broke her heart, because he couldn't fit into the unsub's type any more neatly. Whether he was the original object of the unsub's obsession or simply unlucky enough to be noticed, every element matched, from the short brown hair to the high cheekbones to the slim build to the pale, poreless skin. Looking at his file, she saw two schools listed; a private academy in Westerville and a public school, William McKinley High School in Lima.

McKinley was on her list! She went back through the roster and disciplinary files looking for Kurt. Her eyes widened at what she found, and she called Hotch to request a meeting to share her results.

Keeping the radio open to the police helicopter in Ohio, she told them that the second search she'd started a few hours earlier would have definitely flagged Kurt Hummel's name. He'd filed a harassment complaint against a football and hockey player, alleging bullying to the point of a death threat based on Hummel's sexuality. Midway through the year he'd left the school.

The boy he'd filed the complaint against was David Karofsky, whose name had already been flagged for his temporary suspension in November and chronic truancy in the months since. However, until today the fact that his aggressiveness had been against another boy had kept him off their radar.

Hotch ordered, "Let's get officers to Hummel's house and Karofsky's house right now. Have them learn whatever they can from the Hummels, and see if they can find Karofsky. If he's home, keep him home. But I just want them to get general information about his behavior lately, OK Agent Morgan? I want you and Reid to be the ones who bring the case up. Go straight there."

"Got it."

"He missed school all the days of the murders, and… a lot of days before that too, once Kurt Hummel had transferred out." Penelope sighed.

"He was building up to the first murder, just like we thought," Hotch said. "But through stalking, not rape."

Penelope shook her head as she brought up the Ohio BMV. "He was here all along…. OK, I'm not getting any vehicles registered in his name but I'm getting two registered to a Paul Karofsky… and yes, I think that's the father."

"Send them to the Ohio State Patrol, but if they spot either have them call in before they approach and don't rattle him. Let's do this right and get Kurt Hummel back alive."


	8. Wednesday(Part 2)

3:45pm

When Officer Skip Petrie and his partner Dan Oakland arrived at the Hummel-Hudson house they were engulfed in the kind of swarm that develops when a house four people live in suddenly has to hold ten more people than usual.

A short girl with long, shiny brown hair answered the door, speaking very rapidly. "Hello Officers, we're very glad you're here. I hope it's because you have good news. Please come in. Please take off your shoes. As you can see all of Kurt's friends from McKinley are here to support the Hudson-Hummels in their time of need and also to answer any questions you may have."

"And you are?" Skip asked. His voice seemed slow, but maybe that was just in comparison.

"My name is Rachel Berry and I'm one of Kurt's closest friends and also the captain—I mean co-captain—of the McKinley Glee Club "New Directions". We can tell you all about Kurt's time in New Directions or rather I should say his time at McKinley and also I happened to know quite a bit about his boyfriend, which I hope you realize by now Kurt had nothing to do with his injuries, the idea is just absurd, and—Finn, come here! The police are back!"

Burt had mentioned his new wife and stepson at the shop, but Skip hadn't met him before. The tall boy who shuffled forward was polite, but wary. "The cops before acted like Kurt hurt Blaine."

"He would  _never_  do that," Rachel told them passionately.

"Those guys were from out of town," Skip said. "They don't know Kurt. I do. I know he's a good kid. Actually, I know Burt too. Is he here?"

"He's in Kurt's room," Rachel said. "I can show you where it is."

As she led them through the house, Skip paused and observed the group of teens who had overrun the living room. A black girl and an Asian girl with blue streaks in her hair were holding hands and whispering to each other, sniffling a little. A lanky Asian boy was rubbing the Asian girl's back: brother? Boyfriend? A tall blonde in a red and white cheerleading uniform wandered up to the crying pair and asked if they'd been watching  _The Neverending Story_. The black girl said, "No Brittany, we're just really worried about Kurt."

"I know," said the girl. "If he takes much longer he's going to miss this party and it's even at his house."

In another corner of the room, a boy in a wheelchair was offering the use of his van to go out looking for Kurt. Kurt's brother—Flynn? No, Finn—had joined wandered over there and said it was a good idea. A tough-looking boy with a Mohawk disagreed. "Screw looking for Kurt, we should look for Karofsky. We beat him up until he tells us what he did to Kurt, and then we beat him up some more." He leapt to his feet, and Skip would have gone over there to calm things down, but a hefty girl pushed him back down into his chair.

"The last thing the pigs need is you idiots running around getting in their way," she said. She obviously saw Skip and Dan, and her unconcerned use of the slur for cops made him raise an eyebrow.

The blonde cheerleader from before had also joined the group. "I wanted to get a pet pig," she said vaguely. "But Lord Tubbington didn't like all the mud. It made the litter stick to his toes." No one seemed to know what to say to that; a pretty Hispanic girl, also in a cheerleading uniform, took her arm and led her away, allowing the conversation to resume.

"We wouldn't be in the way," Mohawk protested. "We'd be, like, heroes."

She ignored him and asked Finn, "How do you think Burt and your old lady will feel if you take off on them too?"

Finn's shoulders slumped. "You're right Lauren, we should probably just stay here."

Lauren nodded decisively. "Duh, of course I'm right."

The two cheerleaders were now sitting on the floor. The blonde looked hard at work on a crayon drawing. The Hispanic girl asked what she was drawing for Kurt, and she took a moment to answer. "I'm drawing Kurt with the leprechauns. He promised if he ever got to the end of the rainbow you said he's got that he'd bring me back some gold."

Rachel was looking impatient, but Skip glanced in the kitchen too as they went by. He saw a frazzled-looking woman who had to be Carole juggling a platter of snacks. A tall blonde boy was hovering nearby saying, "Are you sure I can't help you with that?"

He looked hurt when she snapped, "No Sam, for the fifth time, I've got it." Skip glanced at Dan, sending him a silent message, and Dan slipped into the kitchen to help Carole manage her would-be helper.

As he climbed the stairs, Rachel said authoritatively, "I told Mr. Hummel I didn't think it was very healthy for him to just sit in Kurt's room, and that if he needed any more help here I would be happy to call my dads, and that they also know some lawyers just in case, and if this turns out to be because of Kurt's sexuality I really think he should consider speaking to the ACLU and oh, here it is. Mr. Hummel?"

"Don't come in," said a young female voice with a trace of annoyance. "He doesn't want you to sing to him."

Rachel huffed. "I heard you the last time, Quinn. There's a police officer here."

The door swung open and Skip saw a third girl in a cheerleading uniform. As Skip stepped inside, Rachel asked if she could bring them anything, some bottled water maybe. "No," said the cheerleader. "Now go away."

Burt was sitting on his son's bed, his head in his hands. When Skip said his name Burt jerked to attention. "Skip! Any news?"

"Did you hear he's been officially ruled out as a suspect? Just like I told you. The prints didn't match, of course."

Burt shook his head a little like he was trying to clear it. "Anything else?"

Skip cleared his throat. "We've got people going to find that Karofsky kid and talk to him right now. We're taking it real seriously Burt, we've even got FBI coming up from Columbus to work on this." He knew it wouldn't help matters to mention any connection to Ohio's feared serial killer. Burt gave him a searching look, then dropped his head back into his hands.

The cheerleader's gaze was clear-eyed and assessing, and she extended a cool, dry hand for him to shake. "Quinn Fabray."

"Skip Petrie."

"Officer Petrie, I don't know if you believe in the power of prayer. I know Kurt doesn't. But I do, and Mr. Hummel has given me permission to pray for Kurt. Would you like to join me?"

"Yes, of course." Skip laced his fingers together, but didn't bow his head or close his eyes. He wanted keep an eye on Burt.

Quinn sank gracefully to her knees and steepled her fingers, closing her eyes. "Dominus pascit me nihil mihi deerit." Skip was surprised when she spoke in Latin, and wasn't sure what prayer she was reciting.

"In pascuis herbarum adclinavit me super aquas refectionis enutrivit me." Still, the soft, even tones of the prayer were soothing.

"Animam meam refecit duxit me per semitas iustitiae propter nomen suum." Burt's body slumped as he relaxed ever so slightly.

"Sed et si ambulavero in valle mortis non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum es virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa consolabuntur me." Now Burt was crying without embarrassment. He'd talked to Skip before about his fears for Kurt, how he carried the memory of that Matthew Shepard movie with him at every football game, hardware store, or siren wailing by.

There were tears glistening on Quinn's cheeks too, Skip realized. She paused, then repeated part of what she had just said. "Non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum." She bowed her head until her lips brushed the tips of her fingers. "Non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum."

She finished, "Sed et benignitas et misericordia subsequetur me omnibus diebus vitae meae et habitabo in domo Domini in longitudine dierum. Amen."

As the quiet settled around them, Burt whispered, "Thank you," his voice thick with emotion.

"What prayer was that?" Skip asked.

"The 23rd Psalm."

"And the part you repeated?"

She murmured again, "Non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum," then translated, "I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."

No one called, though Rachel tried to coax them out for food. After a while, Quinn started the prayer again.

* * *

 3:47pm

The officers who went to the Karofsky house met his mother Ann, a pleasant but nervous woman who assumed her son had gotten into some trouble involving drugs. Her husband was at work, and she said her son was with his girlfriend Victoria and she wasn't expecting him home until that evening. She hesitated at first, but then allowed them to take fingerprints from her son's room. When she tried calling him at the officers' request, the phone went straight to voicemail, as did his girlfriend's.

* * *

 

 4:00pm

Two officers arrived at Victoria Fredrick's house. No one was home, but a neighbor came out and talked to them and thought Vicky was probably at cheerleading practice. He also gave them the name of the bank her parents both worked at. They reached Vicky's parents at work, and confirmed that her father was fine. Everyone in the family was fine.

Upon hearing that news, Ann Karofsky's eyes filled with tears. She called her husband and asked him to come home right away.

* * *

 

 4:10pm

Penelope opened the email from the coordinator of the hotline in the serial case and downloaded the audio file of Kurt Hummel's call to the hotline. The call was placed March 30, two days after Caitlin Cornelius was found and the case became public knowledge. As she listened, Penelope transcribed the call.

"Thank you for calling the Citizen Response Line," said the officer. "Please state your name. If you don't wish to give your name, please say "Anonymous.""

"Kurt Hummel." His voice was surprisingly high-pitched, but sweetly young.

After confirming the spelling of his name, the officer asked about the nature of his call.

"I was wondering if there's any chance at all the killer would go after a boy," Kurt said, sounding embarrassed. He haltingly tried to explain how he was thin and pale and brunette, and how a bully had made him nervous, had gone beyond "normal" bullying. The officer was dismissive, and Kurt said he was sorry for wasting the officer's time. "I told my boyfriend it was crazy, but he said with how much they look like me that I should call. But you're sure that's not it? OK, that does make me feel better." The call ended with a soft click.

Penelope stared at the blinking cursor on her screen. The team wouldn't blame a local cop for missing a connection that ran so counter to the original profile. The call didn't have any of the hallmarks the team had the officers looking for. But it still upset her that the answer had been so close, but unrecognized. She sighed and with a few keystrokes sent the audio file and the transcription to the rest of the team.

* * *

 4:20pm

When officers Vang and Wallace arrived from Vicky's house to McKinley, cheerleading practice was in full swing. In other locations, they would probably have been able to stop the practice and take the person they wanted to interview to one side. But Officer Vang had been the instructor of a self-defense class Sue Sylvester had once dropped in on (eventually he'd regained feeling in his arms) and Wallace had met her when her neighbors complained about the spitting cobras. They managed to not tell her why they wanted to talk to Vicky, but when her lips twisted into a thin scowl they agreed they could wait until the end of the song.

"Sorry," Vicky told them. "Three Cheerios decided not to come today and they didn't tell her beforehand. So she's in kind of a bad mood." They could hear Sylvester telling an unfortunate girl to do 500 pushups.

Vicky was a pleasant if slightly dim girl who was brunette and athletically slender, though not as pale as the unsub's usual type. She readily admitted to lying on her boyfriend's behalf, but didn't have any idea where he was.

* * *

 4:40

Paul Karofsky was home when Morgan, Reid and Callahan arrived. When Callahan introduced him, Paul said, "The FBI? This isn't just about some drug bust, is it?"

"No," said Callahan. "I'm afraid it isn't."

Paul looked at them carefully and then said. "I've seen you on the news. You're here because of that serial killer. You… you don't think Dave had anything to do with that?"

The agents exchanged glances, and Reid said, "Actually, we were hoping you could tell us anything you know about Dave and Kurt Hummel."

Ann looked confused. "The gay boy? He made up some story about Dave to get him into trouble. He got Dave expelled even though there wasn't any evidence."

Paul on the other hand looked uncomfortable. "I'm not convinced he made it up," he told his wife. "You weren't in that meeting. That boy was afraid of Dave."

"Did Dave ever mention Kurt, other than that incident?" They didn't think so, but Dave didn't talk much about school. "Do you know how Dave feels about gay people?"

"Why," Ann asked, "would we talk about something like that? That's not polite conversation."

Were they aware that when Dave's expulsion was overturned, Kurt Hummel had transferred out of district?

"No," said Ann, "but that's probably for the best. He seemed to like antagonizing Dave."

At once, all phones of officers and agents in the room beeped with an incoming message. Prints in David Karofsky's bedroom matched the prints at the murder sites and on the tire iron. They'd been all but convinced before, but now they were wholly confident in their suspect.

When the Karofskys, particularly Ann, continued to avoid their son's behavior, talking about how much he had turned around in the last few weeks, Morgan said in a level voice, "Mr. and Mrs. Karofsky, we believe your son is a latent homosexual who killed five women before attacking Kurt Hummel's boyfriend and abducting Hummel himself. If you have any idea, any at all, about where your son is, tell us now."

Ann physically rocked back as though the words were literal blows. She cried and shook her head. Her husband had gone pale at Morgan's recitation, but he said, "The only place I can think of is our cabin on Indian Lake. It's in Russells Point, I can get the address."

"How long will it take to get there?" Reid asked.

"About 40 minutes?" Paul wrote down the address on a notepad, and hesitated before giving it to Callahan. "I just can't believe my son would do… those things." His eyes said otherwise.

For all his large vocabulary, Reid couldn't think of any words of comfort, and Morgan wasn't inclined to offer any. Callahan said, "We appreciate your honesty. Keep trying to think of places he might go, if we get to Russells Point and he's not there."

"But don't try to call him," Morgan warned, speaking more to the uniform cops than to the distraught couple.

"He only kept the women as long as it took to kill them," Morgan thought as they went out to the car and programmed the GPS. "Less than an hour apiece, once you consider how much driving back and forth he had to do. It's been over four hours since Kurt Hummel disappeared. He's been the object of pursuit all along, so he'll come in for different treatment. But what are the chances that he's still alive?"


	9. The Cabin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to note that if I'd changed the final line of this chapter just a little (say, not including the last 4 words), the ending would have been infinitely more evil.

* * *

At 3:51pm that Wednesday, many things were happening. Penelope was preparing a flier on David Karofsky to be distributed to local and state police. Officers rifled through his room, not seeing any drugs, but a few oddities. A cake topper. A crumpled scrap of silk. Quinn Fabray intoned the Lord's Prayer in her soft alto. Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid were still riding north in the helicopter. And Dave himself pulled into the driveway of his family's cabin, killing the engine.

He had a tin of Altoids in the car, and popped one in his mouth to cover the smell of the meatball sub he'd eaten on the drive. He picked up the bag with the other sub, a Veggie Delight. The girl at Subway told him it was really healthy, and he knew Kurt liked healthy shit.

As he opened the cabin door he heard Kurt screaming for help.

Cursing under his breath, he slammed the door shut, dropped the sandwich, and rushed into the bedroom. Kurt was still tied to the bed, but the wad of duct tape was lying useless on the bed next to him.

When he saw Dave, Kurt stopped yelling, "Help, I've been kidnapped!" and instead said urgently, "Let me go. Please, I won't press charges, I'll testify on your behalf—"

Dave slapped him across the face. "You're not doing anything for me."

He grabbed the dildo, and Kurt forced his gaze away from it to look into Dave's eyes and gasp, "Why did you bring me here? Karofsky—Dave—"

Dave shrugged and forced the sex toy into Kurt's mouth. Kurt's eyes were wide with panic and he seemed to be struggling to breathe around it. "It's your own fault," Dave told him. "I was fine with the duct tape. If you try to spit it out I'll tape it in place. And I brought you some food, but now I think I'll wait until you're behaving better." The dildo protruding from Kurt's mouth made him imagine Kurt giving him a blowjob. He wished he could demand one right now, but knew Kurt would probably try to bite him. The red mark from his hand stood out on Kurt's pale cheek.

For that matter, the hickeys he'd made on Kurt's neck earlier were stark on his white skin. He brushed them with his fingers, and Kurt shivered. Or maybe he was shivering from cold; Dave suddenly realized even he was a little chilly, and Kurt had been partly undressed and unable to move much for a few hours.

Still, Kurt had obviously been struggling while Dave was gone. Even with the padding on the restraints, the skin around his wrists was red. And his pants sat even lower on his hips. Karofsky tugged them down past Kurt's knees, admiring the long legs and light dusting of hair. That surprised him a little since he'd always imaged Kurt as hairless like a girl. It should have freaked him out, but it just turned him on more. He thought about taking the pants off completely, but he didn't want to risk untying Kurt's feet; he knew Kurt had a powerful kick. So he left the fabric tangled around Kurt's ankles.

Dave trailed his finger along the upper edge of Kurt's underwear and thought about taking it off too, but chickened out. He could always do that later, he told himself. He got a blanket from the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and spread it over Kurt.

As he undressed, Dave thought about what to do. He could fuck Kurt, of course. He wanted to and he knew he could. He could even make it good for Kurt.

But why would he want to make it good for Kurt? Kurt had  _done this_  to him; Kurt had broken him and ruined him. Any normal guy would be happy with his easy cheerleader girlfriend. Dave hadn't asked Kurt Hummel to worm his way into Dave's dreams. He could take Kurt down to the cellar where he'd taken the hookers.

He could make Kurt beg for forgiveness, even though Dave would never forgive him. He could punish Kurt, make him scream in pain.

But the Kurt in Dave's dreams wasn't pleading or crying. He was smiling, a sly quick smile for only Dave, and his clever fingers were tracing spirals of Dave's skin, and his body was arched in pleasure. In Dave's dreams, Kurt walked down the hallway with him, holding Dave's hand, and if anyone dared to say anything against them Kurt looked to Dave for protection. He curled into Dave's side on the couch with a movie or sleepily from the other side of Dave's bed.

Dave got the knife and he got the lube and some condoms, and he looked between them. In the end he put them both on the bedside table and got into bed, plastering his body against Kurt's—and wow, Kurt was really cold, he might have hypothermia or something—and wrapping his arms around Kurt. Dave was naked and Kurt had his underwear and undershirt but nothing else, and Dave could  _feel_  the tension in Kurt's body, and the tiny tremors running through him. It was probably the cold.

The restraints had enough give for Dave to turn Kurt on his side and spoon him properly. His erection pressed against the back of Kurt's thigh, and Dave felt his hips trying to thrust forward, but not in a frantic or hurried way. Kurt's skin was as smooth as Dave had imagined, and his hair was as soft. Dave inhaled deeply and started kissing the smooth curve of Kurt's neck again, ignoring the muffled whimpering.

After a while Kurt started to feel warmer again, even though the trembling didn't stop. It felt like he fit perfectly within Dave's arms, like a missing puzzle piece. Dave imagined the future, being in New York because he knew Kurt wanted to end up there, and he wasn't sure what their jobs were or how they'd gotten there, but they stayed liked this awhile every morning when they woke, close against each other.

Dave pressed even closer, slipping one of his feet between Kurt's legs. His erection was flush against the thin fabric of Kurt's underwear, and he gave into it, grunting as he thrust against Kurt's unmoving body and gasping "Kurt" as he came. He knew he should clean them both off but he felt tired and sated and warm, and he held Kurt so tightly he could feel Kurt breathing, the rise and fall of his lungs, his rapidly beating heart. He nuzzled his head against Kurt's and drifted to sleep.

* * *

Pounding at the door. Voices shouting, "FBI! Open up!" Then a crash.

Kurt didn't understand any of it. Karofsky must have. He jolted up. A jerk, and Kurt's hands weren't tied to the bed, though they were still tied to each other. Karofsky wrapped an arm around Kurt's back as he sat up, forcing Kurt up with him and pulling Kurt onto his lap. He was hard again, and Kurt tried to squirm away, but Karofsky's grip around him was like iron, one hand holding Kurt's wrists to his chest, pressing their torsos together. The other hand… Kurt felt something touch the front of his neck and knew it was the knife. "Don't move," Karofsky breathed into his hair, and then the bedroom door swung open and cops started to rush into the room.

"Don't come any closer!" Karofsky warned, and they stopped. Only two had made it fully into the room, a black man first, nearly level with the bed, and a white man just inside the doorway. They were both holding guns at ready. They were probably pointed at Karofsky's head but given their position it felt like they were pointed straight at Kurt.

Kurt could only imagine how he must look to them. The blanket had tumbled to their waists when they sat up; the cops probably thought he was naked under it. Once Kurt thought that, it was the only thing his brain had room for. He wanted desperately to tell them it wasn't like that, that he hadn't—that Karofsky hadn't—but he couldn't talk, the dildo…. His chest heaved as he started to hyperventilate. He couldn't understand what anyone was saying, and there was a knife to his throat, and everything was a dull roar.

* * *

"Get out of here!" David Karofsky snarled, face half-hidden behind his hostage.

Morgan's finger was steady over the trigger. "We both know that's not going to happen."

"Get out or I'll kill him!"

"Like you killed all those women?" Reid asked from the doorway.

"You think I won't? I will! This is all his fault anyway!" Karofsky shook Hummel for emphasis, slightly cutting Hummel in his agitation. For his part, Hummel would not be able to work with them and twist away at an opportune moment; his eyes were glassy and he was limp in Karofsky's grasp. He was obviously in shock. But he was alive, and Morgan intended for him to stay that way.

"What's his fault?" Morgan asked.

"I'll—I'll kill him on three if you don't get out! One—"

"You know we can't."

"Two…."

"Even if we did…"

"Three!"

"…everyone will know."

Karofsky's hand twitched over the blade. Morgan still didn't have a clear shot. "Everyone will know what?"

Morgan could see how afraid Karofsky was. He was a big kid, could pass as an adult even, but in that moment Morgan could clearly see his youth, his uncertainty and insecurities. He understood the warring impulses that had tangled together sex and violence. Morgan saw it all, and said coldly, "Everyone will know you're gay."

Karofsky sobbed, a choked sound, and it was 50-50 whether he'd cut his victim's throat or loosen his hold enough for Morgan to take a shot.

"I'm not!" Karofsky insisted, and twisted his wrist, the blade flashing as it cut into his own neck.


	10. Tales of the South Pacific

* * *

Something sticky and hot splashed onto the back of Kurt's neck and shoulder and he wondered if Karof—if  _He_  had come on him again. But air smelled like blood, not sex. The grip around Kurt loosened, and Kurt lunged away, practically diving off the bed.

Of course, he'd forgotten that his feet were still tied to it. He hit the floor hard with his shoulder, knocking his head, and his legs twisted. One of  _His_ legs was still positioned between Kurt's, and the movement did dislodge it, but something in Kurt's right leg also  _gave_ , then started throbbing. The blanket was just draped over his lower legs now.

Then there were hands grabbing at him, and Kurt thrashed wildly. He didn't know how his legs were freed from the bed but a moment later they were on the floor with the rest of him and his pants were still around his ankles. And incongruously, he was still wearing his socks.

A gentle tug, and the plastic filling his mouth was gone, and he was gasping in air. There were arms around him, and they were trapping him, and he hit at the solid shape in front of him as hard as he could with his still-bound hands.

The arms released him and he sat trying to breathe. Gradually he became aware of someone talking to him, of a phrase being repeated over and over. Eventually he realized what the words meant.

* * *

"Are you hurt?" Morgan asked again, and this time the boy looked at him.

"What?"

"Are you hurt?"

The boy frowned. "I—don't think so?"

If he'd looked seriously injured Morgan would have restrained him for the paramedics to do their thing, even held him still while a sedative was administered. But although he was bruised up and there was a narrow cut on the front of his neck, physically he didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, and trying to touch him had sent him into hysterics.

Morgan gave his most reassuring smile. "I'm Derek."

The boy looked at him uncertainly. "I'm Kurt. Are you a cop?"

"I am indeed, and I'm very glad you're OK, Kurt."

Kurt's eyes were distant. "Am I?"

Morgan hoped he wasn't slipping back into shock. "I can help you with your hands there."

Kurt looked down at his hands like he'd forgotten they were tied. He hesitated, then held them out to Morgan, who elected to work the knots loose rather than cut them with a knife. When his hands were free Kurt snatched them back and wrapped them around his middle.

"Are you cold?" Morgan shook open a plastic space blanket the EMTs had brought in and offered it. After a moment, Kurt's hand darted out to grab it. Although he wrapped it around himself, his shivering increased.

Morgan asked, "Do you think you can stand up?" Kurt looked at him blankly. "I can help you stand up, but I'll need to touch you, OK?" Still nothing. Morgan stood and took hold of Kurt's arms through the blanket. Kurt didn't struggle, but he started hyperventilating again and then went limp. Morgan caught him before he could hit the floor and called for a stretcher.

* * *

There was a flurry of activity as always, and a million things to do. Morgan followed the stretcher out and saw the kid onto an ambulance. Then he sighed, turned, and went back into the house.

Crime scenes told stories. There was the unfinished storm cellar, not much more than warped boards for stairs, and the bloodstains. There wasn't even a light; all the better for Karofsky when he pretended the women he killed were someone else. The fireplace upstairs smelled like burnt hair. There was a sub sandwich on the floor just inside the front door, still neatly wrapped in paper.

The bedroom and adjacent bath told a story too, albeit an incomplete one. Kurt Hummel's ripped clothes in the bathroom. David Karofsky's, tossed carelessly on the floor by the bed. Kurt's shoes. The bed; the carving knife, the blood near the headboard, the dried semen in the middle.

"Will he live?" Morgan asked Reid. While Morgan focused on the victim, Reid had focused on the unsub and called the others in. Morgan had wondered if the unsub would fixate on Reid, Reid with his lanky, pale features. But Karofsky hadn't spared Reid a second glance; he already had what he wanted.

Reid shrugged. The paramedics worked just as hard to save a killer as an innocent. That was the nature of their job.

"I hope he doesn't," Morgan said. He'd thought it before. It would put Kurt Hummel through more, if Karofsky lived and there was any kind of trial. There was semen on the sheets.

Reid's eyes were sympathetic. "I'll call the Karofskys. Why don't you call Mr. Hummel and tell him we found his son, and that he's alive." Because they'd gone straight to the Karofsky house in Lima, Morgan hadn't met or spoken to the man. This was a phone call he hardly ever got to make.

* * *

David Karofsky was in a coma. If he ever answered questions about his crimes, or paid for them, it wouldn't be anytime soon. There was an abundance of physical evidence against him, though. If it was any consolation, the families of his victims would have that closure.

Blaine Anderson was also in a coma (albeit a medically induced one) while his doctors waited for the swelling in his brain to reduce. His latest MRI results were encouraging; the doctors seemed very optimistic, at any rate. Morgan met his father—his mother was out getting them food, it seemed. The father seemed like a stereotypical businessman, very buttoned down, hair slicked back with care. Except a few strands had fallen loose and his shirt was rumbled. After shaking Morgan's hand, the first thing he said was, "Tell me it's not because he's gay."

Morgan didn't pause. "It's not because he's gay."

Mr. Anderson's face crumpled. "Are you saying that to comfort me?"

"I'm saying it because it's true."

Morgan watched Mr. Anderson watch his son. "I don't know how to protect him," the man admitted. "I want to forbid him from ever seeing Kurt Hummel again. I want to take him out of this state, out of this country even. Maybe Paris. But no, there are crazies there too. Maybe Canada. Manitoba. Saskatchewan."

Morgan said nothing, just waited.

Anderson snorted and said ruefully, "And then he'd be attacked by a grizzly bear, I suppose." His hand ghosted over his son's curls. "Actually," he said, "I just want him to open his eyes." He looked at Morgan with pain and guilt and hope in his dark eyes. "That's really the only thing I want."

Morgan briefly met Blaine Anderson's brother, too, a vaguely-familiar man who said with apparent seriousness that he'd played an FBI Agent in an independent film once. Morgan listened a little while to his nervous chatter, then went to find Kurt's room.

Detective Callahan and others would interview him extensively. That wouldn't be Morgan's role. Once the profile was complete, and certainly once the unsub was found, the BAU's work was done. They were leaving that night.

The nurse said Mr. Hummel was down at the Columbus police station, and Morgan imagined he was threatening the department in general for dismissing his son's call to the hotline. He still hadn't met the man in person, but Burt Hummel was quickly getting a reputation among the LEOs for his advocacy for his son. "Go on in," the nurse said. "He's watching a musical."

Mogan listened at the door for a moment. He wasn't exactly a musical kind of guy, so while he had the sense it was a famous musical, he wasn't familiar with it. A man in military garb was singing. " _You've got to be taught/to hate and fear. /You've got to be taught/from year to year. /It's got to be drummed/in your dear little ear. /You've got to be carefully taught_."

Morgan cleared his throat as the next verse started, and Kurt Hummel turned slowly to look. There was a flash of recognition when he saw Morgan, and he fumbled to pause the television.

"I don't know if you remember me," Morgan began.

"Derek," Kurt said softly. "You were—there."

"I was," Morgan agreed. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm great," Kurt said, voice flat. "Why wouldn't I be? I barely have a scratch on me."

Morgan raised his eyebrows. "That's not a cast on your leg?" He sat down on the chair next to Kurt's bed. He didn't mention the large hickey or the thin scratch on Kurt's neck. It wasn't deep enough for stitches, but it was easy to see.

Kurt shot him a reproachful look. "A hairline fracture, which I did to myself, freaking out."

"Just because you're not injured much doesn't mean you're not hurt," Morgan said.

Kurt wrinkled his nose. "What's that supposed to mean?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He tortured and killed women. He put Blaine in a  _coma_. What he did to me… it's nothing, next to that."

"That's why I wanted to talk to you," Morgan said. "I wanted to tell you—it's not a competition for "who got hurt the worst". You can't compare what you went through to what anyone else went through. So he didn't stab you, fine. He still abducted you, held you against your will, assaulted you." As he spoke, Kurt shook his head as if in denial.

"He didn't rape me," Kurt said quickly, eyes flicking towards Morgan and then down at his hands. "I mean—I don't know if they told you that. I know what it must have looked like, in There."

"He might not have penetrated you, but he did rape you," Morgan said. "I think you know that too."

Kurt took a moment to reply. "I don't want to be a victim," he finally said.

"I've read your file, Kid. You're no victim, you're a survivor."

"I want to be famous, but for Broadway or fashion. For being the best at what I do. Not for this."

There wasn't a lot Morgan could say in response to that. Being under 18 would protect Kurt from the media a little, but it was a national story. His name was out there now. He said, "You  _will_  be known for those things. This will be a footnote, and your fans will only be more impressed by you."

"You don't know that."

"I do know that. You know Lila Archer?"

Kurt rolled his eyes. "The Golden Globe winner? The one in every big movie this summer? Yes, I know who Lila Archer is."

"Just as she was starting to get big, she had a stalker. It got scary and violent, too, though she was attacked in her own house, not taken somewhere. It gets mentioned sometimes, but she's not known for that."

They sat in silence for a while. Morgan wondered if Reid ever talked to Lila these days, and if she'd be willing to talk to Kurt about getting past this. It would be fair if she didn't want to. The TV started playing again, the "pause" having timed out, and Kurt hit it again. Finally, without looking at Morgan he said, "I feel like it's all my fault. Those women. Blaine. …me. He wouldn't have… done any of that, if it hadn't been for me."

Morgan said levelly, "It was about you, but it wasn't  _because_  of you. And if it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else. I know that's small consolation, but that's the way stalkers work, Kurt. There's no one to blame but Karofsky himself." Kurt flinched at the name, and Morgan pretended not to notice.

After a minute, Kurt said, "The media is blaming homophobia. They say if He hadn't thought being gay was the worst thing in the world, it never would have gotten to where it did. He would have just… asked me out, or something."

Morgan remembered the room, how frightened Karofsky was. "Everyone will know you're gay," he'd said, and Karofsky had tried to kill himself. He thought about the school Kurt had been forced to leave because the school board hadn't taken Karofsky's threat seriously, how the LEOs had laughed about crazy tips like a gay boy calling in.

"It probably played a role," Morgan acknowledged. "But plenty of straight stalkers get dangerous, too. It's easy to talk in hypotheticals."

"I can't get it out of my head," Kurt said. "If I think it had a lot to do with what happened, am I letting… Him… off the hook? …I keep listening to this song, over and over. Do you know  _South Pacific_?

"I know it's an older musical, pretty famous. Not a lot I guess. Didn't they make a movie from it a few years ago?"

"They've made a few," Kurt said. "This is the 1958 one. But the stage play is almost a decade older. It's heavily about racial prejudice. Whether it's something we're born with, or something society teaches us."

Reid would know all about this, Morgan knew. He wasn't sure whether Reid actually liked musicals, but he'd know about them either way. Morgan wouldn't trade places with him for the world; the Karofskys had wanted to speak with him. So Morgan said, "That sounds pretty radical for the '40s."

Kurt smiled thinly. "Oh, it was. The critics said it was indecent and pro-Communist, and a that a song justifying interracial marriage was a threat to "the American way of life." But the authors said they wouldn't change their play, even if that message made it fail."

"It sounds like something worth listening too then," Morgan said honestly. "I'd like to hear it."

* * *

He gave Kurt his card, invited him to call anytime, to keep in touch. But only if he wanted to.

Burt Hummel got back to the hospital as Morgan was leaving. Hummel was a solid, strong bear of a man, and thinking of the stories he'd heard over the last day, Morgan felt better about Kurt's chances.

"Thank you," Burt told him with sincere emotion. "Anything I can ever do for you or yours, you've got it."

"You have a fine son," Morgan told him. "Don't let this get him thinking otherwise."

When Burt said, "I won't," Morgan believed him.

A swarm of teenagers crowded around the hotel lobby, bearing balloons and toy animals and flowers and—a karaoke machine? As he skirted the group he heard snippets of their conversations, including Kurt's name.

On the plane ride home, he thought about the trust with which Kurt had looked at him, so different from most assault victims, who couldn't see past Morgan's gender. He thought about what it said about the country when someone would rather be dead than gay, or kill than be gay. He thought about his playful banter with Penelope, the casual way they flirted without worry.

He knew the case had resolved about as well as a serial case ever could, and he felt hopeful that Kurt would be OK, and on Broadway soon enough. The final verse of the song had stuck in his head, and as he looked out the window at the patchwork fields below, he thought of the words again.

_You've got to be taught before it's too late,  
_ _before you are six or seven or eight,  
_ _to hate all the people your relatives hate,  
_ _you've got to be carefully taught_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to end with a quote, in true CM fashion; "South Pacific" is by Rodgers and Hammerstein, based on the (long, but excellent) novel by James Michener. And although it's not why I chose the song, Matthew Morrison (Mr. Schue on Glee) has played Lt. Cable (the singer of "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught"). Small world, huh?
> 
> I do have a head canon about what happened with Kurt, Blaine and Dave in the end, but I wanted to leave the story open-ended, partly because that's the nature of a Criminal Minds episode, and partly because it would have seemed too "neat" to tie up every loose thread so quickly.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed (insofar as the content makes it possible) the story.

**Author's Note:**

> -The book Reid was reading at the start was Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined." (In case you were wondering).
> 
> -Reviews are appreciated; what do you make of the case so far?


End file.
